#cold pastoral

[vyva-melinkolya]

near Indiana, Pennsylvania

[tmarshconnors]

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak outBecause I was not a Jew. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me."

Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller was a German theologian and Lutheran pastor. He is best known for his opposition to the Nazi regime during the late 1930s.

Born: 14 January 1892, Lippstadt, Germany

Died: 6 March 1984, Wiesbaden, Germany

[bobertflaming]

I've been having some thoughts on level 0 Immortal powers for Glitch-like variants of CMWGE traits. More precisely, I've been thinking about Immortal, Frantic and Sickly powers, and correspondingly level 0 powers in general for corresponding attributes.

TL;DR what if generally Immortal trait level 0 power were powers of Foreshadowing?

So, like, in CMWGE Sickly and Frantic are, precisely, special actions authorizations like "encounter trouble" or "suffer corruption/trauma".

And to me thus it makes sense for level 0 powers for Frantic or Sickly attributes to dabble in that, in these kinds of effects. For level 0 powers of Sickly attribute to be powers to declare unto your character some form of trauma or corruption thematically tied to the arc; and for level 0 powers of Frantic attribute, to be powers to declare some form of trouble your character's into. Or, at least, these are good candidate for level 0 powers in tentative 0-12 power ladders.

For Wounded for instance this could be about their Blasphemy, level zero could be the power to invoke some trauma resulting from the blasphemy, and level 4, triggered by the HG, could be the blasphemy/trauma reaching a tipping point as bad as the one which leads Strategists to leave creation for instance in Wyrd’s Wailing Rites. And for the Sealed, whose experience of the world distort, it could be "(Suffer) Corruption" instead of "(Suffer) Trauma", like "I invoke this power to enforce that I suffer corruption from having warped view of the world".  Wanderer could be "I suffer corruption from the influence unto me of my shadow" ... And it'd be like possible or so for traits like Deepness and Theft to act in similar ways as well for level 0 powers.

And, to me, similarly, it makes sense for level 0 powers of Frantic arcs to be tied to characters' ability to invoke trouble unto themselves or generally defend their ability to be in trouble - and I think that the Agony rites does that very well for instance: in a sense it's a way for Strategists to say, even when in a situation where à priori their infection would not bring trouble to them, to say "no, no actually, I am in trouble even here". And Estate-driven divination and Connection have a similar feel to me, in that they are powers that invoke themselves when something the character is tied to is in trouble, they are basically incentives to get the character in trouble and prompts for ways to do it. They are ways to make it easier that ‘a threat approches’ happens narratively and thus, in spirit, make it easier to “(Be in) Trouble”. And if [Punching Out the Moon: or, the Glitch Trait “Aspect” (I)]'s inital version of level 0 power for Aspect of Level 0 Rite: “Flawed” seem not to be where the attribute will end up, it still feels indicative to me of the idea that good candidates for level 0 powers of frantic attributes are the powers to retain the ability to get in trouble, declare trouble unto yourself, or prompts or warnings that you are in trouble in some way. But Immortality ? Immortality is not the same, because it is not a "special action authorization" but rather a "Super-duper healing factor". It's, basically, Immortality, you know? However the quality of Immortality of an Angel or a Lightlord or even a True God feels, to me, more of an aspect of the splats themselves: Angels are conceptually invincible and True Gods have too many layers to kill effectively. Indicatively Strategists have somewhat a kind of immortality, but their immortal attribute, Lore, is not what grants it to them. Also, a splat with four Immortal attributes like the Angels would have little diversity in its power set if all its level 0 powers were about reducing damages done to them. This means to me there is less of a clear cut guideline to follow in regards to Immortal attribute's level 0 power candidates in general, except maybe that one would want them to not feel too Sickly or Frantic ? So i’ve, maybe not very reasonably, tried to think about what would its XP action be if Immortal was about an XP action like Sickly and Frantic, in order to have a sort of guideline for level 0 powers, although admittedly this is probably a little bit too far fetched... Sickly characters are typically unhealthy (Suffer Trauma) and deviate from the normal functionning of the world (Suffer Corruption). Frantic characters are just trying to find a place in the world. They ... they cling to their mortality despite their power. They get themselves into troubles by clinging to their mortality and by trying to fit into the world rather than be already fit or rather than impose upon the world ? So they are not at peace with the world, but not traumatize by it or estranged from it either ? And Immortal characters ... they are slow in their intrigues, their acts are not forcefull, or immediate... they are in accord with the world, in tune with it... What kind of XP-action would it look like ? Jenna noted in the Prophet write-up that “Conceptually slightly easier access to red actions will also make an NPC a little safer and more grounded in an Adventure Fantasy or Fairy Tale or on the Road of Trials; a little more insightful in an  Epic Fantasy; and unusually empathetic in a Pastoral or Gothic game. “ And I believe that this kinds of fit well with the idea of an Immortal character? Being safer, more grounded while facing trauma and adversity. Being more insightful - dare I say, more in tune with the world?- in Epic Fantasies. The ability to be more empathetic sure is all right as well. I believe access to Setting Actions could provide a similar feel but with probably less of the ‘woohoo’ expected from true Immortality (Also, ‘Foreshadowing’ feels more “slow in their actions” than ‘Discovery’). So let's say for a moment that good candidates for level 0 miracles of Immortal traits could be declarations of Foreshadowing or Sympathy. Monstrous, Holy, and Lore's level 0 abilities could be seen as kinds of Foreshadowing actions based on a Curse/Experience/Sphere. Allegorical's level 0 ability could be not so dissimilar to a kind of Foreshadowing and/or Sympathetic action based on one’s legend, one’s history. Then, to limit how much Foreshadowing powers Angels have, Adept and Gardener could have variations that’d be more on the Sympathetic Side.

[antimnemonic]

that style of modern writing that’s more like an attempt at being a sort of heroic call to arms than just being prose. you-know-what-no-fuck-youcore. idk

[mtvatlas]

neil used to make billy go to church every sunday so let’s just say when he sees a holy holler he’s first thought is “i’m gonna beat ass”

[hillhouses]

hannah was soo normal until i started giving her prophetic dreams and subjected her to the horrors. and that is good character design

[bsaka7]

I’m going to the Boxing Day arsenal match and I’ve been stressing the same thing 😢😢

PLEASE HAVE SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!! Wishing u good weather and good play!!! Don't freeze!!!!! I suppose that's all the "joys" of sports.... #stress

[lintillaarchaeologist]

This is mostly but not entirely true: actually he didn’t write the poem. It is a shortened poetic and translated version of a confessional speech.

The quoted version is the American version. The British version (https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/) is almost identical, but is three lines longer. It goes

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was no one left

To speak out for me

Wikipedia has a partial translation of the original speech, as well as this interesting quote from Niemöller himself which seems to imply that the British version is more accurate.

So the obvious question here: why didn’t the American version mention the communists?

Additional question to ponder: the nazis also, rather famously, came for the disabled, transgender people, the romani, the gays, etc. long before they came for Niemöller, why aren’t these groups mentioned?

[bordercolliefanclub]

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[pearlcigs]

⋆ maybe some faith would do me good

christian!virgin!reader x ellie williams

summary ⋆ ellie's forced to go to some church camp thing for the summer. maybe she'll actually enjoy it if she keeps seeing you around.

warnings ⋆ 2.78k ⋆ smut, non apocalyptic au, guys dont cancel me😅, mention of suicide (jokingly) , implied reader virginity loss, religious themes, alludes to what david did to ellie, friends to enemies to lovers kinda, dacryphilia, public sex, sex in church, public humiliation, cunnilingus and fingering (r!receiving), pet names (baby, pretty girl, good girl)

ellie tried to protest when joel proposed the idea of ellie spending her summer days at some camp for religious kids that one of the elders in jackson had volunteered to host, she really did. she didn't know what joel was trying to accomplish. maybe he thought in some twisted way this would help her get over that encounter. it didn't matter what the point was, it mattered that she was being woken up at 8 in the morning on the first day of summer to go to some stupid camp. joel told her she was being dramatic, it was only a 2 and half week program and then the rest of her summer was free.

she was still grumpy nevertheless, slumping her way to this church retreat. she'd only packed enough for a week, hoping that if she ran out of clothes they'd be forced to send her home. A friendly old woman greeted her, smiling and cheerful unlike ellie. The woman led ellie to a room, explaining that this was her room during the program. She fought every urge to roll her eyes, knowing the woman was just being nice but, god, who really had that much energy this early in the morning? The woman instructed her to leave her bag on one of the beds— great she had a roommate— and then make her way to the prayer room.

ellie groaned at the thought. prayer room? she might as well shoot herself now. she complied nevertheless. her feet dragging along the wooden floor, the planks creaking with every step she took. the halls were white, various pictures of religious symbolism decorating the otherwise plain walls. she couldn't deny that the hallway made her feel uneasy. she could only imagine what it looked like at night. ellie sighs as she comes across a door, half open and she can hear chatter from behind it. she worked up the courage to walk through the door, preparing herself for whatever bullshit she'll endure while she's here.

she takes a look around the room, eyes all the girls who seemed to all know each other. each girl with their own smile on their face. ellie rolled her eyes, closing the door behind her and before she could even process what was happening, she was approached by a girl. you. "i didn't think you'd be here." you smile at her, oblivious to the one sided feud you had with ellie. you were the pastor's daughter, probably the one responsible for this little get together. god, ellie hated you. the way you dressed, the way you talked, the stupid smile on your face, the even stupider bow in your hair and that little sundress that showed so much for someone like you.

truthfully, ellie didn't have a good reason to hate you. especially since you two grew up together, being raised to be built in friends. but hating you just to hate you seemed justified enough for her. "didn't have much of a choice." she barely keeps eye contact, keeping her response cold and dry. you frown at that. "oh. okay..." you look down to your shoes, it was obvious you picked up on the dismay in her tone. her mind wonders, just for a second, if she took it too far. but she shakes the thought. "yeah." she clears her throat, looking around the room once again. "well... um..." it was ridiculous how quickly your confidence was knocked down. all because of ellie.

ellie chuckles, finding some sick amusement in your reaction. you were going to speak again, probably to ask something like 'are you mad at me?' but you were dragged away by your friends. ellie sighed, watching you walk away. her eyes trailing from the back of your head all the way down to your— woah. why the hell did she look there?! god, but the damage was done. ellie wanted to look again, certain parts of her practically begging for just another glance. she refuses though, instead focusing on one of the stained glass windows. nothing fancy, just a red cross with a blue background. the funding for this particular chapel wasn't exactly the highest.

ellie could feel herself warm up, her mind jolting such crude thoughts about you. she groaned, running a hand through her hair. you had her mind so confused. she hated your guts. she really did. but all she could think about when she saw you was how much she wanted to bend you over and just yell at you. for what? she didn't know. for being too religious? too kind? too innocent? her mind wanders again, to a new thought she'd never had before. she wanted to ruin you, give it to you until you couldn't possibly take it any more. watching all the innocence leave your eyes while she filled you with sin. ellie snaps out of her thoughts, noticing that the woman from earlier had begun to speak about the quote unquote 'fun activities planned'.

through out the day, she tried to avoid you. even when you tried your very hardest to make amends for something you had no clue about. she participated in the church themed activities with little enthusiasm, being told more than once to at least act like she was having fun. the sun had begun to set, the chaperones calling out that dinner was ready. but ellie wasn't hungry. she managed to slip away from everyone else. wondering the semi creepy halls, just thinking to herself. she counted how many times the floor squeaked and creaked. she was content with just doing that until she counted a creak that she didn't make.

she turned around, her heart rate a little elevated only to find out it was just you. she sighed and rolled her eyes, returning to her initial path. "hey... they said dinner was ready." you were wary, nervous and shy even, and she couldn't blame you. "i know." her tone was less harsh this time. perhaps she was feeling guilty for her outburst earlier. "you're... um, you're going the wrong way." you were just trying to be helpful, but with every word you spoke, the more ellie got angry at you. "i know." she repeated. she heart your soft footsteps running up behind her to catch up. "so, why are you going this way?" your voice was so sweet, just like the honey ellie imagined licking off your body at least 30 times today.

she didn't answer, continuing to walk in the opposite direction of where she needed to be. and you just followed like a lost little puppy. "hey? i said—" she cuts you off. "i heard you." her cold tone was back. "oh." just like earlier, your gaze redirected to your shoes. "don't do that." she sighed, looking over at you. "huh? do what...?" you look up at her, frown evident on your face. "look like i just crushed your heart." ellie looked away from you again, examining the religious paraphilia on the walls. you didn't reply, looking away again but ellie didn't miss the hint of blush covering your face before you did. "oh? did i just crush your heart?" she jokes, weirdly seeming to warm up to you. once again, she's met to no reply. she rolls her eyes, turning the corner in the hall. she was met with a door and she wasn't sure if she should enter.

"it's the chapel." you explain, sensing her confusion and hesitation. ellie looks at you, a little annoyance on her face that you knew something she didn't. she pulls the handle on the door, gesturing for you to enter first. "ladies first." she remarks, not much amusement in her tone. you walk in and she follows after you. it was empty and though it shouldn't be creepy, ellie felt unnerved. "wait! don't let it close—" you try to warn, but the door had already been shut. you sigh, biting your lip in anxiousness. "what?" she utters, wondering why her closing the door was a bad thing. "it locks from the outside." you explain and ellie's face drops. "that's fucking great." ellie groans, running her hands over her face, walking down the isle and up the two steps to the alter. you follow.

"i tried to tell you..." you mutter. ellie wants to yell at you. say something along the lines of 'you should have tried harder' or whatever but before you can get the words out your head is in your hands and you're crying. ellie's shocked, not knowing what to do or say. she sighs. "don't cry, c'mon." she comforts, moving your hands away from your face and wiping your tears. it made you reminiscent to when you and ellie used to be friends. "i'm sorry." you sniffle as she dries your tears. "why're you crying, hm?" she tries to be gentle but just at the sight of your tears makes her want to fuck you over the alter. "'cause you're being mean and i got us locked in here." you vent your frustrations, revealing just what a hard day you had because of ellie.

she feels terrible now, hating that she made you feel so inadequate. god, why does she even care how you feel? ellie looks at you, watching as you wipe the tears that she missed. "i'm sorry for being so mean." she apologizes, deciding to cut the act. she didn't hate you. she could never hate you. "i just can't get you out of my mind." she admits. you look at her blankly for a moment, clearly not understanding. but ellie can see the exact moment when your eyes lighten up, realizing what she meant. "you mean it?" you ask, full of hope. "god." ellie rolls her eyes and your naivety. she leans closer to you, pressing her lips against yours, her hands cupping your face.

you pull back and ellie is now the one who frowns. did she misinterpret all your signs? "i'm not good at that." you admit while avoiding eye contact. ellie chuckles, pulling you closer by your waist. "i don't care." she mutters, kissing down your neck. you gasp, her warm tongue running over your cool skin. ellie's hands venture down, grabbing your ass over your dress. the ass that started this whole mess. "ellie!" you were startled. it felt like all the statues were suddenly watching you, judging you. but it just felt too good to care. but it weighed in the back of your mind as ellie kissed your jaw.

"i'm gonna fuck you so good." she mumbles, becoming drunk with lust. "i've never..." you trail off, your voice transitioning into a gasp when her hands begin to roam over your body. "i know. so pure, huh?" she teases with an eye roll, mocking how the church would call you pure. you don't reply. you couldn't. you words stuck in your throat, your eyes focused on her hands. watching them caress your waist slowly sliding up your body to cup your breasts. "el..." your whisper, you voice filled with breath. "i'm right here." she slides her right hand back down your body, reaching your thighs. she trails her fingers over the flesh before pressing her finger to your clothed cunt. you gasp, clutching onto her tighter.

"i know, baby. feels so good, doesn't it?" she mumbles in your ear, her fingers circling your clit so gently over your panties, which were becoming soaked. "el, el, ellie." you breathed out heavily, trying your best to keep as most decency as you could. after all, this was a chapel. "saying my name just like a prayer." ellie acknowledges, her fingers slowly working towards slipping into your underwear. your eyes rolled back when her cold fingers finally touch the place you needed her most. your legs were weak, wanting to give out on you. ellie notices, biting back a laugh at how blissed you already looked. she leaned you against the alter, her fingers working faster.

"so pretty." ellie mutter against your clammy skin. "so good. you're being such a good girl." her words made you feel so dirty but so... aroused at the same time. "keep... keep saying that." you barely managed to get out, you voice coming out in broken whimpers. "yeah? you like being my good girl?" she gently slides a finger into your dripping cunt. ellie can help but moan herself. "ellie." you whisper, feeling more pleasure than you've ever felt before. "i know. i know." she comforts, knowing exactly how you were feeling as she adds another finger. ellie was so aroused, drunk on the power of ruining you, being the one to help you commit the worst sin you've ever done.

your head lolled back, feeling something you've never felt before. "el." you choke out. "i know. you're almost there." ellie sinks to her knees, kneeling in front of you. "should i confess my sins to you." she whispers, kissing your thighs. you can't respond, finding the scene before you so arousing. ellie lifts up your dress to reveal your lacy underwear. "of course." she mutters under her breath. "hold this for me pretty girl." she looks up at you, and you shakily take hold of the dress that she flipped up. she gently slides your panties down your thighs, never breaking eye contact with you. she helps you step out of them, shoving them in her pocket so she didn't have to put them on the dirty ground.

her eyes flicker down to your pussy, biting her lip. "ellie." you can't even focus anymore, the loss of her fingers deep in your cunt making you want to cry. "i'm gonna make you feel so good. just be patient." she kisses your inner thighs, teasing you. you can't say anything, complain about how much you need her. but luckily, she doesn't torture too much, cause in a matter of seconds she's sucking on your clit, with her fingers returning to their job of fucking you. the sweat on your body makes you hot to touch, needing your release so badly. you push your hips forward instinctively, greedily wanting everything ellie could give you. before you could even process how good ellie was making feel, your orgasm approached.

ellie couldn't help but moan as your own moans got louder and your free hand tangled itself in her hair. "so close, baby." she mumbles into your pussy, feeling just as pleasured as you do. "el. oh my gosh, el! please!" you mutter, your words conjumbled and not making much sense. "good job, baby." she mumbles as she finally pushes you over the edge. your moans are loud and broken, filling the empty chapel with such sin. the cross necklace around your neck sticking to your skin. "ellie rubs your thighs, pressing small kisses on your pussy. "can't get enough of this pussy." she moaned, so drunk on you, on lust, on life. "ellie—" you whine and she moves away but not before she runs her tongue through your folds one last time.

"so good." she praises and lets your dress fall back into place. ellie kisses you, the taste of your arousal still in her lips. she pulls away, both of you out of breath. the sound of doors opening cause you both to pull apart. your hands going to fix your hair. "ms. heather wanted to know where you two went. you okay...?" a girl ellie recognized as one of your friends from earlier asked you. ellie began to make her way down the steps and down the isle, you quick to follow. "yes, yeah. we just got a little lost." you speak slowly, trying to maintain your thoughts.

your eyes scattered around to find your underwear. ellie smirked when she saw you looking around, knowing they were right in her pocket. she would give them back eventually but the thought of you walking around a few hours commando just made her feel things. catching glimpses of you around the night pulling down your dress, looking around to make sure no one can see anything. but of course in the morning she'll return them after using them all that night, after her roommate when home sick. but this is ellie we're talking about. she had to tease you just a little bit. so on day two when everyone wakes up to gather in the prayer room to see a pair of lace panties hanging from the cross, the kids and chaperones were most definitely shocked, and of course ellie earned some death glares from you in between your embarrassment. and ellie can't help but think maybe she'll hang out with you at church more often if that's the reward.

another christian!reader x ellie williams fic!

[moondirti]

𝐂𝐀𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐅𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑, 𝐈𝐈 [18+]

familiar! ghost × witch! reader

you are a witch trapped at home by a devastating blizzard. ghost is the demon that answers your call. ( 2 of 3 /PREV )

DEAD DOVE. RATED E. HORROR EROTICA. 9K. – AO3 heed the warnings below and proceed at your own discretion.

warnings: NONCON. graphic depictions of gore. injury. cannibalism. blood licking. slaughtering + ingesting animals. violence. degradation. body horror. hypothermia. isolation. manipulation. corruption kink. religious imagery. dark!ghost. female reader. i know i said 2 parts total but now it's a 3er.

additional tags: groping. tit fondling. rough oral (male receiving). face-fucking. cum guzzling + eating. it’s all a little disgusting and not in the good way i fear.

𝐈𝐈.𝐈

The cottage is halfway buried under snow when you run out of firewood. 

It should come as no surprise, though you stare down your emptied closet like the ground opened up and swallowed your remaining reserve. Out of body, you fail to confront the cold reality that has already seeped into your walls, freezing the splintered wood of your floors, instead standing stock-still as your mind sharpens its critical edge. 

Only there is no one to direct your reproach to but yourself. Weeks ago, your rune casts had predicted a crippling whiteout, thus you set out to collect enough fuel to last you the season. Yet as night waxed on the third day of your efforts, and your hands started tearing bloody from splitting hardwood all on your own, that resolve debilitated rather quickly. Like sugar steeped in tea; your will to live was already in a decrepit state, and indeed, eagerly unravelled at the first sign of adversity. Suicidal, with hindsight. A passive play at death of which you were too fearful to try and seek for yourself. 

It did not seem like that at the time, of course. Rather, you justified the fatuous decision to stop (after cutting down a mere three trees) by concocting an estimate of how long it would be before you could venture out for more. Based on absolutely nothing but a desperation to curl back on your couch, sore but sheltered, you gave it one month. One month until the storm would abate. Of restlessness, fermenting in a prison you call home. To your distorted sense, four-hundred pieces of firewood seemed plenty enough to get you through it, despite admittedly lacking even a basic working knowledge of wood arithmetic.

Counting the days now, you’re almost tempted to laugh. Almost. The shroud of horror that newly accompanies death since Ghost’s lesson triumphs, after all. You are more terrified than you would have been a week ago. Still, you were not wrong – the firewood had lasted a month – only the weather does not seem to be looking up, and you’re trapped inside a quickly cooling cottage with no source of heat to get you to the thaw. The possibility of fatal hypothermia looms closer, more dangerous. Eerily relevant–

(Just a year ago, you watched a man die from the warmth of your ancestral home, face down in fresh snow outside the parlour room window. Your ageing mother had invited the pastor’s son over to help repair the stairs left unattended since your father’s death, and the man had called your fascination with the corpse morbid, nail between two teeth as he hammered down a wooden plank. 

No use starin’ at a dead man, lass. Not for a bonnie thin’ like you.

But you could not tear your eyes away from his mottled skin, the blue-black ends of his fingers. Even at his burial several days later, his face displayed the same, blank expression, perpetually cast by that winter’s frigid storm.) 

You imagine yourself passing in a similar vein. It will take longer, you think. You’ll be dying for weeks as your blood courses slower through you, iced by the winds that howl down your chimney. Protected, but not enough, by these walls you have been banished to live within. Unable to get even a glimpse of sunlight before shutting your eyes for the last time, the snow packed up to your windows effectively burying you without ceremony. A forgotten tomb. 

You wonder if Ghost would intervene, yet your speculation is brief. His words echo like he uttered them only moments ago. Fight or die. He has long established the volitional aspects of your relationship – he owes you nothing unless you ask, and if you do, then you would rather wish you were dead in lieu of what he asks for in return. No. He will merely watch as you take your last breath, satisfied that he was right, then scavenge your carcass for his next meal. Fated to wet his mouth like the picked off crow. A long-awaited feast.

Curling in on yourself, it is all you can do to bury yourself in clothes. Your vulnerability is often a fickle thing, you find, ebbing and flowing like seawater tides gradually gorging on their shore. There are periods you feel invincible; a being made of eternal magic, unmoved by the shifts in nature bid by time. Some sequoia, whose roots pierce deep into the earth and drink from freshwater wells unacquainted with human touch. A thing truly deserving of the title witch. 

Other times – these times being of increasing occurrence since the arrival of your familiar – you cannot help but to shrink back into a girl again. Raw and tender and emotionally volatile. Naked, sore lungs, as you’re pulled from your mother’s womb and forced to embrace the harsh cut of air. Ghost watches from his usual corner, a spectre practically pulsing with this voyeuristic game he likes to play. You know he’s figured out the predicament you’ve put yourself in, can feel yourself quailing at the discredit his judgement affords. The layers serve a dual purpose, then – for warmth, and to grant brief reprieve from his gaze on your shivering form. 

Three pairs of socks. A tunic, a fleece, a cardigan, and a coat. Skirts over your trousers. Gloves and a woollen hat. 

By the end, you have a hard time moving at all. Certainly not enough to cook, or to try tunnelling a way out of the window. No point in reading if you can’t practise your magic, either; so you mutter a quiet ignition spell over the charred firewood from last night, hoping it lasts even half as long, before collapsing on the couch and willing yourself to sleep. 

Only sleep does not come. 

Or, it might. Yet your mind is so occupied with your condition that it does not allow you to fully lose consciousness. You’re attuned to every particle around you, overstimulated in the worst sense, still subjected to an unsettling sequence of half-dreams. Brain flickering through pale mirages of dead crows, ice floes, of capsized rafts in arctic waters, their hulls resembling slabs of marbled meat. As you drown, you shout for help and pique at the sound of it echoing in real life, tangible enough that it shakes you awake. You nearly strangle yourself trying to wind your quilt tighter around your shoulders afterward, burying your nose in a pillow and cupping your cheeks with frigid hands. 

Eventually, time joins the distortion, and you have a hard time discerning whether it’s been hours or meagre minutes. The only indication is the way in which your body starts to ache with a pain so profound, it is as though you’ve been beaten. If you weren’t frustratingly cognizant of your surroundings the whole night, your first bet would have been to blame Ghost, or at least the threadbare couch you’ve been using as a bed erring too long now. Unfortunately, the true cause of your affliction is hard to misdiagnose; a violent, merciless shivering, your muscles made to tremble as if compelled to by electric shock. The teeth chattering kind – and it is exactly the rattle of ivory against ivory that serves as a makeshift timekeeper. 

Click. Click. Clickclick. Click. 

It must be two hours later when you bite your tongue and jolt completely awake from the pain, swathed in your quilt like the nesting doll that sat on your windowsill back home. Though the appendage bleeds, spreading metallic bitterness onto your teeth, you wonder for a brief moment whether you are alive at all. Foggy vision. Taut skin drawing lines down your cheeks from either corner of your eyes. When you squint, it tugs tighter, and you realise at one point you had started crying. It’s hard to tell without your nose hot and runny, or your lips swollen like overripe berries. Instead, you’re rendered to a shrivelled reflection of yourself, dried tear tracks setting the image in stone. The shadow looming above you seems to agree. 

“Not dead yet. But only just.”

You wish you could say his voice is any softer than standard. That the stars aligned, or that this is an ideal world where the antediluvian creature occupying your home has tapped into his small pool of pity. But he nudges your knee with all the detached amusement he prescribes to most things, like he can’t understand why you’re so easily affected by the cold. 

“Ghost?” 

“Almost exclusively.” He mocks.

The couch dips near your feet. You do not register why until he scoops an arm into your quilt, pulling you from warm refuge and onto his lap instead. It isn’t in you to fight, merely mewling like a feverish cat as you reach a hand out to the cushion where you once lay. Wiggling your fingers, kicking your heels. 

He swats your arm until it flops back to your side. 

“If only y’could see yourself like this. Bloody pathetic, pet.” 

“I’m c-cold.” 

“Not doin’ yourself any favours, then. This,” He tugs at the coat barely hugging your shoulders, stretched taut over your bulky layers. “off.” 

When you fail to listen, he takes the initiative for you, pulling it down your arms and towards some distant corner. You don’t miss it, necessarily – it hardly did anything to keep you warm – but you protest the loss as you would have done anything else; noisily, sniffing to suppress the fresh bout of tears spooling over your vision. 

“Think you exhausted every option, hm? All you can do is curl over and cry?” With his hands now at your cardigan, thumbs hooked under the lapel, you search his eyes for indication of what he intends to do. Ghost is difficult to appreciate even on the best of days, but now, without the handy glow of fire or direct stream of sunlight, he’s practically impossible. Like two mountains stood tall with no valley in between them, no line of logic exists that can explain his actuality. 

(And you’ve never been the logical type – there is no precise science to why goat fat and cumin work together to lure someone into love, or why you knew to stay away from the pastor who kept your mother company. Some things exist solely in magical proportions; limiting yourself to rational thought would be doing a great disservice to what they have to offer.

But confronting Ghost on a plane where he has the upper hand is a daunting task, so you stick to what rationale can place.) 

“What are you–you doing?” 

“Shut it.” He folds the cardigan around your hips, clasping a colossal palm onto the back of your neck. Though you’re used to being scruffed when he’s less than pleased with you, the purpose of this is far from dissatisfaction. You know it immediately. His skin, flesh, is warmer than anything you’ve felt in a long time. A quality of comfortable, penetrating heat that sinks into your nape and slowly works to defrost your marrow, your limbs, the icy film clinging to your brain. Your eyes roll shut almost instantaneously, body slumping forward to sink into his chest. Somewhere in the recesses of your mind, where the relief of warmth has not yet reached, you worry that he’ll push you off. 

He does not. 

Instead, his other hand slips under your fleece and tunic, smoothing over the knots of your spine to reach between your shoulder blades. There, his heat sinks to swathe your chest, and the weakly heart somehow managing to do its job, pumping blood that tickles your toes and fingertips. It drips down to your tummy too, where it weighs heavy like a tangible mass, and brings your pulse to the bud between your legs.

His touch there doesn’t last long; he pulls away only moments later, a tightness newly lifted off your sternum. One hand still kneads your nape, effectively keeping your face against his broad shoulder, but the other moves to collect your slack wrists together. It strikes you as unusual, sure, yet you’ve since surrendered your inhibitions for sake of survival. A cavewoman tradeoff. Your body purrs at the satisfaction of your baser instincts, happy to resort to this primitive state of impartiality, if only it means you’ll stay snug throughout the winter. 

Yes. If anyone were to ask you right then, you would have seen it as not only plausible but entirely necessary to stay like this for the months to come. Sated and secure and just a hint impassioned, content to doze off on the lap of your tormentor. Already halfway there, lashes fluttering as you battle complete oblivion. 

Only that isn’t what Ghost has in store, and he seems eager to break the illusion you hold in such high regard. 

He releases your neck, guiding you to sit upright upon his tree-trunk thighs. When you object by reaching for his hands again, you find that your own are securely fixed behind your back. Completely immobilised. 

Sensation slowly trickles back to you. Once numb, your skin now comes alive with frayed nerve endings, crackling, hair standing on its ends. What you find, alarmingly, is your place within a twisted example of the lesson Ghost has been attempting to teach. The lightness on your sternum not as metaphorical as you had assumed – rather, the bandages binding your breasts have been unwrapped to treacherously hitch your wrists together. The rough fabric excoriates the surface of your forearms. 

Your breathing accelerates. If you’d been freezing before, you’re thoroughly iced now. Shock races through your system and persecutes everything that lulled you into this position. Stupid, stupid, stu–

“Ghost.” You hiss. “Ghost. This is-isn’t funny.”

He doesn’t respond, rolling your top to reveal the soft stretch of your navel. It involuntarily retracts when he flits over your belly button, dodging the unwelcome spread of his fingers. Your body's way of protesting, for all you lean into his touch. Too tempting not to, really. Something in him burns; perhaps a furnace in place of his heart, or a piece of hell he takes with him wherever he goes. 

That primitive voice grows louder, whispering deceptively in your ear that it’s fine, let him touch you. So long as you stay warm. 

You shake your head as if to jerk the instinct off your crown. Lips pursed tight now, the hand on your belly slowly climbing up. Up. 

“Stop it. Stop this, I d-don’t want it.” 

“I know.” He says, pressing his thumb into your waist. It digs until it hits a rib, tenderising muscle. You’re a lamb on a spit, spun slowly, roasted over an open flame. How silly of you to lean into the burn. Short-sighted to decide that it’s better than the cruel press of winter. You’ll be eaten like this. 

“Then g-get the fuck off me!” You yelp, swaying on your haunches in a bid to knock yourself off his lap. Your arms are useless, but that does not mean you cannot fight. “I order you!”

That pulls a laugh from him. Or, what sounds like a laugh. As with everything, it’s his estimate of a human one, like the cicada mimics the bird; not as melodic, rather striking you with disgust so potent you feel your nausea reawakening. You might just hurl.

“And wha’ will I be granted in return? Nothin’ you have that’ll convince me to unhand you, pet.” Ghost rucks your tunic to your shoulders at last, exposing your bare breasts to bitter air. Though he gives them no time to pebble up, large paws enveloping both mounds and squeezing until your breath syphons from your lungs. “Haven’ seen a pair of tits in decades. Suppose you humans do have somethin’ going for you.” 

Your words startle in your throat. Nothing about it is pleasurable, nor does he intend for it to be. His fingers take your nipples; rolling, tugging, pinching. Nails dig crescent cuts into the darkened skin there, perhaps searching for blood. He certainly treats it as though blood is the aim, and you wonder whether you’re to be hung from your bust to drain onto his waiting tongue. Just as one might press olives, no care for their pulpy bodies but only the rich oil they produce. Grease to slick their pans, to moisten their mouths. 

You’ll be eaten like this.

“Stop, please.” 

“Wonder what y’would look like plump with milk. Nursing my litter, rounded out with another dozen.” He sucks his teeth, contemplative. “Body wouldn’t handle it, f’you ask me. Stronger women than you ‘ave tried.”

Have. It hurts to think about. Hurts more when the insult of his words truly resonates. Stronger women. That is to say you have been exiled for nothing. That with a year of solitude and occult practice, you are just as feeble as before. Is this why he ate your crow? To prove to you that he could? 

The tide pushes back out. In a great swell of loam and brine, your hatred crashes vengefully onshore. You muster all of it, dipping pails into the water and letting it weigh heavy on your shoulders. It is almost negligible, you find. You scarcely feel its burden when fuelled by a focused point to your antipathy. Your teeth stop chattering. You glare daggers. 

“Let me go.” 

Your final plea rolls over him like all the ones before it. “But you’re a witch, aren’t ya? Brew up a little elixir to pull yourself through the whelping. Maybe then you’ll realise how much you long to stay alive.” 

Your neck snaps back. Before you can think it through, you thrust your head towards his face. There’s a crunch, a dizzying moment of choked silence, then a hot burst of moisture down your face. For a naive moment, you think you must have struck gold. You imagine drawing back to find his mask sticky with blood, or tar, or whatever demons have thrumming through their veins. A raw testament to your resolve, if he should ever underestimate it again. 

But the mirage is as naive as your mother. Eventually the pain catches up to you. You realise the iron-tang at the back of your throat is not the dreg of satisfaction. The tears slipping past your lashes no longer wrought from misery. Everything, rather, an immediate response to the sore condition of your nose. Misshapen and swelling already.

Ghost hums. You hoped to see him grovelling in pain by now. The battered expectation somehow makes his condescension worse. 

“Good to see y’find your spirit,” His head tilts, bullying yours into remaining still, fingers knitted firmly in your hair. “but it’s misplaced.” 

Given his derision, you know not to rejoice when his other hand leaves your chest. Your shirt slumps lamely back over your figure as he lifts the edges of his mask, folding it over his mouth. In the dark, it’s difficult to map the nuances of his exposed jowls. There’s a pale curve there, a disfigured line here. Your sinuses twinge when your stare narrows, cutting through murk to place the shape of his lips. 

It’s futile. You have no way to jam the gaps; no way of knowing whether he’s all man, all demon, or a foul mix of the two. 

The one thing that glimmers with definition is the string of spit when he unlatches his jaw, long tongue striking like a wound-tight cobra. You would flinch if you could, eyes pruning shut, but his grip keeps you steady in place as he laves a forceful path up your chin. Tasting the metallic leak of blood, all the way up to its source. 

You see it coming. Still, you can’t help but scream when he works his tongue around your nose. Loosed bones shift under your skin, steadiness fractured, cartilage support dipping inwards against the assault. He groans, and in spite of your impaired sense of smell, you get a whiff of rot-hot breath. It must all be a terrible dream, you think. The hardened muscle pressing against your inner thighs, the viscous web of saliva stretched across your face. It’s cold and you’re sweaty, and everything about the past month – the past year – seems like it has been especially curated to torment you. You would wake from this any second.

He gathers the salty drips off your eyes, the blood, every grief coating your skin. Agony blinds you – so profound it takes shape, colour. You squirm in your binds, ragged shrieks ripping from your throat. 

It echoes even after he breaks away. If it weren’t for the sudden coolness of spit drying within your cupid’s bow, you would think he was still making a feast of you. 

“Tha’ got you to settle, hm?” 

You shake your head, exhausted. “You said–” 

“I said fight, or die.” He huffs. You let silence swathe your lips, pursing them as thin as you can manage without exacerbating your injury. “Yer fighting to die, pet.”

“I just want to be left alone.” 

“‘N’ what d’you think will come of that?” 

“It shouldn’t m-matter.” Your conviction sound hollow when spoken aloud. If he hears it, he uses it as an incentive to strip your top back over your chest. Like a hot wire pushed through your ribcage, his warm hands toast you from the outside in. It is in your best interest not to shiver in delight; though you are still dreadfully cold, and your injury makes it difficult to pigeonhole any alleviation to your pain. “You can’t-t-t defile me on the grounds of greater good.” 

Ghost laughs again. “Ain’ pretending this is for the greater good, pet. The world will thank me if one more witch freezes to ‘er death.” You’re yanked further up his lap. “I let you go, you’ve got four, five hours tops ‘till your heart fails. You wan’ to live?”

You shake your head, fervent tremors batting your pout. A nonanswer seems the only manner of resistance, now. “Not like this.” 

“Clever. Tha’ still tells me you do.” He pinches the knotted peaks of your breasts, twisting until you buck wretchedly onto his pelvis. “And I wan’ to spend my evenin’ playing with your tits. A fair compromise, then.” 

What sort of familiar makes the demands? You contemplate berating him out loud, lunging for the dirty insult to beat at his status like he did yours. With no room for taking the high ground, you will do anything so long as you can later say you bared your claws. So you do not wonder, for countless sleepless nights, if there was something more you should have done. You will be mean. You will go low. You will condemn him to a fate of eternal dissatisfaction, so that no matter how much he eats or kills or takes, he will always feel his stomach a gnawing pit. 

Though something tells you he will not succumb to scrutiny against his honour. There is no code for creatures like him, who floss their teeth with crow meat and pluck the nipples of girls who grant them shelter. Nothing to hold them to expect the conditions of their summons.

Perhaps that’s just it.

You stir. It feels much like magic, when an incantation rolls off the tongue just right and the air shifts to accommodate it. Your heart vibrates behind your sternum, power bloating your veins, ricocheting within your skin. If Ghost feels it, he doesn’t falter.

“Be sure, demon.” You rasp, drawing your intent taut in your chest like a bowstring. He hums but does not stop, kneading your flesh to conform to the creases and calluses of his hands. “Be sure that’s what you want. I could give in without further fuss and be like a docile rabbit on your lap. That way, you will have taken two things from me tonight.” 

The liquid of his eyes shifts quick. You catch its gleam in the little light, and it pleases you enough to deliver the rest of your covenant.  

“By the spell that brought you here, you are bound to do what I sacrifice for.” You pause a moment. “In exchange for the blood you have ingested off my face, you will dig this house out of the snow. And for my virtue, this one evening allowance of which you have already taken upon yourself, you will collect my firewood until the season clears.” 

Ghost makes an indiscernible noise from underneath. You can not tell if he is peeved or pleased, and the ambiguity shakes you. You expected some sort of acknowledgment or counter to your trick. Instead, he does not speak on it. No pitch or complaint, protest or taunt. 

He just sits there, pawing at your chest like a satiated dog. 

(And come morning, when your breasts are raw and tender to the touch, he tunnels the snow around your cottage and returns hours later with a hundred cedar logs for the kindling.)

𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈

She prefers him in the daylight

Sun floods her little home when it rises and keeps it bright until it sets. Whereas the dark plays tricks on mortal eyes, oil lamps flickering, casting shadows that always resemble something else. She likes training an eye on what he does in his usual corner; but come night, she can’t trust what she sees. Thus, her confidence strains. She flinches at every sound. Any movement will have her tucking deeper under her quilt. His empty-eyed stare glows more sinister, if anything is to be assumed by the way she will crack her grimoire open and mouth protective spells like prayers.

Perhaps she’s afraid she caused offence, that he mulls over a punishment to teach her not to make a fool of him again. Perhaps it plagues her that she cannot stop him if that is the case. He does not tell her that, already, the worst possible thing that can confront her has. Though of course she isn’t privy to it, it’s been a month since he decided against making a meal of her. Everything he does now is moderate in comparison. He’s being good. 

Good, yes. In the evenings, he will venture out to do her bidding. The timing grants her a few hours rest, then, and him an opportunity to hunt for his dinner. 

Good, because he waits until he’s a mile out to transform to his truer self. It is easier to strip trees of their branches and snap their spines when he stands over two metres tall. Not so easy to mend the fragile tolerance she’s gained for him, which is sure to shatter if she catches sight of his monstrosity. He eludes the possibility entirely, then. 

Good, because Ghost refrains from agitating her more than he already has. And his intention in doing so does not change that decency. 

That is to say, he hasn’t grown a heart. He does not care for the girl. But the passivity that necessitated his savagery has since come to pass. She’s grown claws. She fights for her say and punches through life with guile. Any more and he would be faulting her for it, like burning the meat he tumbled through mud to slaughter. It is down to him to take it off the roast, now, to revel in the succulent bite. He’s got her right where he wants her.  

With some brief tampering on his part – laying out the temptation like a breadcrumb trail into the woods – she broke her invisible vow not to ask him for anything. Has it not made her life that much simpler? Her hearth burns bright and warm everyday; she does not have to worry about keeping it lit for the remnants of winter. He picks cedar for its aroma, it's even char, and she would not have access to that if it weren’t for his ability to tackle the sturdy tree. All it took was her debauchment, the vitiating of character to match his. 

(And really, how debauched was it if she only endured his groping for one night?)

It isn’t too much to want, he thinks. 

She thinks so too. Or otherwise decides it's worth the risk. 

It is late into the evening and his dinner sits fresh in his belly, fire chewing away at the split logs he emptied into the pit earlier. The air is thick with cloying cedar and the mephitic scent of potion-brewing, his pet crouched over a bubbling pot. She has been at it for hours, the same nightly routine since she broke her nose. Tadpoles and feverfew and sage, chanterelle and wishbone and sand. Stirred, brought to a boil, thickened with spit. Then scooped out and smothered over her sore face. A modest poultice, turned cast, to help her mend correctly over weeks.

He wonders if she considered bothering him to heal her. He certainly can. But it appears as though she enjoys keeping her hands busy. Toiling through time, grinding away like water does the earth. In the aeons he’s been around, he’s seen mountains chipped away, rocks change shape, rivers bend over time – and it is always the same eternal petulance. Stubborn mediocrity built into something larger. Endurance over brute force. He doesn’t pretend to understand it, but he can recognise a reflection of it in her craft. 

But she is not eternal. Every mortal has their limits. 

Ghost sees the iron grow filigree in her eyes, calculations imprinting onto her resolve. When she stands and turns to him, he almost expects it. The past quarter hour has built up to this ambitious ask, whatever it may be, and he’s mapped every battle she’s held within herself over the course of it. She does not want like he does. It is only extraneous circumstance that would lead her to his service. 

“I started it later than I usually do.” She mumbles, lips twisting like maggots. The hollows under her eyes are prominent, both exhaustion and hunger trimming her down to a sorry state. “I need sleep, but this can’t be heated beyond a boil.”

His cock chubs up in his trousers, aching as an array of possibilities occur to him in that second. Would he split her cunt on his fingers? Would he make her set it down atop his tongue? Her skirt leaves much to the imagination, but he imagines it bright and faithful in his head. Darker on the outside than in, glazed with pellucid slick, and shrouded in a matting of hair. The thought alone funnels salivate to the underside of his tongue. 

He meets her eye, shoulders curving inward, poised to pounce. 

Then, her brow spasms, and the wolfish instinct unravels as fast as it materialises. 

No. He cannot push it too far, not when she asks for something so little. It took all her energy to come to him now. She will never consider it again if he exploits that beyond equal measure. 

So, Ghost stands, stalking over to the cauldron and his pet. He often forgets how small she is until she cranes her neck to look up at him, all owlish blinks and delicate fingers latticed together, anxious for his response. 

“I’ll wake you.” He says. The tension in her forehead ebbs immediately, eyelids sagging now that he confirmed her ingredients will not waste. Though she doesn’t move, and he makes her stand there until he determines on an appropriate return. 

Moments later, he wraps an arm around her. His hand finds the jut in her skirt, where it protrudes to lap over her arse, and squeezes around the fat of one cheek. Even with the layers separating them, she is supple like softened butter. She makes a sound like a trapped mouse, jumping to the balls of her feet. The noise doesn’t deter him; he holds it there until he’s satisfied his grip will bruise. 

“There we are.” When he releases her, she stumbles backwards to find her bearings against the cool press of the wall. Puts a safe distance between them. Yet her stunned silence is intoxicating, and he has to actively suppress the gluttonous urge for more. Nothing is sacred when he gets like this. “That’s us even, then.” 

She nods. It is a wonder she manages to sleep at all.

(Unfortunate that the potion to heal her broken nose steals stock from her kitchen shelves. Day by day, he’s watched her sacrifice her fungi and herbs to the cauldron, prioritising recovery over sustenance. Unfortunate that she is still unable to go out for more. The winter whips cruel and merciless winds for anyone who dares step out into its storm.

Unfortunate. But not moving enough. 

It is intentional silence on his part, then. For the day will come where she opens her cupboards to eat and finds them lined with dust.

And on that day, he will be there.) 

𝐈𝐈.𝐈𝐈𝐈

Ghost takes his meals outside. 

That is, when he comes back lugging a dead beast and a tree behind him. You’ll watch from the window as he places the latter to the side, sinking to his knees to feast on whatever he caught that day. It always varies: hares, owls, rodents. An elk if he’s lucky. Today, it is a fox. 

Your heart knots with pity, mourning for the mammal who cannot grieve itself. Eyes blank and jaw swung open. Its fur, which typically strikes as a vivid red, can only look dull when set by the blood it leaves in its trail, tangled in the entrails bursting from its belly. The demon never minds the hair, nor the carnage. He balances on his haunches and pulls his mask up, sinking his teeth into the softest parts of his spoils. 

Though no one holds you to the frosted glass – chanting look, you have to look – you insist on bearing witness. The gore never grows easier to behold; everytime, it is the same revulsion that stews nausea at the sight. But you sit and suffer it anyway. If anyone were to ask you why, you would be hard-pressed to find an answer. 

Perhaps it is to build a tolerance for nature’s brutality. Ghost’s lesson with your crow has carved an irreplicable torment within you, revealing the jeopardy you face should you continue down your meek path. Exposure therapy is good justification, then, when your personal improvement thus far has only wrought merit. Your magic begets greater effect. You feel your self-possession flourish your spirit. Even your familiar has staved off the trouble, and you can not ask for a greater success.  

But that does not capture the core of the matter. Perhaps that is to be found in him, instead.

Because when Ghost eats, his visage will fluctuate. You do not think it is something he’s mindful of. None of it looks intentional – he does not bid whetted talons or teeth, features that would aid him in gutting the fox. Rather, they appear like fish beneath a rippling brook. Swift, transient flashes of another form. 

He sucks down an intestine, and his burly legs stretch so the joints are equidistant. They snap backwards, digitigrade heels extending, before you blink and they’re human once more.

He laps at a puddle of blood, and his mask parts to reveal two ivory prongs that steadily grow from his head. They curl, winding around his temples as ram horns do, only to disappear as your arid eyes burn. 

He tears into cartilage, and his exposed skin flakes like charred wood. The liver; his torso extends and thins. The brain; his breath condenses to black ash, as yours would ghostly vapour in cold air. None of it permanent. All of it haunting. 

The first time you saw it, you chalked it up to phantasm. Lack of sleep, insufficient nutrition. Searching for monstrosity that would better connect to the horror unfurling before you. So you set out to observe. Incessantly. Again and again and again – validating what you saw, though you received confirmation upon the second instance long ago. Sure enough, each day he reveals different parts to a whole. Excrescent spines and lofty feet. Things that have been urging for a spot in the sun, pressing under his skin. 

It’s the nesting doll all over again. Little matryoshka faces, each opening to reveal a smaller version of itself within. If you are the innermost one, then Ghost is the sisyphean effort to close them over each other in descending order. Unfeasible. Too large to comfortably remain within his confines. The wood will eventually snap in your struggle, and all the painted pieces will scatter across the floor. 

(You remember him just then. Craggy charm and blue eyes. Crafty hand – the same to restore your mother’s staircase – whittling the doll when you suggested he couldn’t. He wore a cross no matter the day, a habit of his father’s doing, and the silver pendant would sway with the paring motion of his hands. Lustrous against tanned skin. No doubt forged by him, too.

He used to call you macabre. Though it was footling fun at the time, you can’t help but grasp at what he meant as you track the steaming slaughter outside.)

“Do you like it?”

Water rushes into a tin basin, its metallic clang a forceful, echoing percussion. The noise is insufferable, grating on your ears, but you would rather it than have Ghost tow the pungent smell of death into your home. With his back turned to you, he washes his hands and mouth of dinner’s remnants, faucet spitting frigid reserves into the kitchen sink. 

His head twists a fraction, pupils coasting to assess you in his peripheral. Small talk is not commonplace. In the weeks you have coexisted, you can count your conversations on both hands. They always seem to prefer the path of internal dissection instead, judgments flung at one another through glares and body language and not much else. 

“Be more specific.” He grunts, facing his task again. From your place on the couch, you can see the way he picks his nails for stubborn shreds of fat. 

“Fox.”

A sliver of pale skin, bared where his mask ends at his nape, twitches. “No.” 

“Why not?” 

“Ammonic. Greasy. Tough all ‘round. Slippery little fucks, too.” His voice is softer when he isn’t being caustic. Skipping over enunciations, the typical rumble in his chest quieted to a hum. “There are easier, more rewardin’ meals.” 

You imagine what he may be referring to. Of every creature on this earth, only one does not have the benefit of evasion. Predators are sheltered by hierarchical canopies, demons like Ghost so powerful that they do not have to watch their backs. Birds of prey have their wings, fish their slippery scales. Even deer – slender and pregnable – are granted fleet-footed instincts rivalled only by the Pantheon’s messenger himself. It is only you, human, that is condemned to spindling, slow inelegance. Perhaps it is why so many are intellectuals, worshipers, terrors – why you yourself are a witch, sapping nature for her wares of which you do not come by naturally. That is the way things turn. Assuming the offensive to offset one’s shortcomings.

And turn back again; your effort has only imperilled you further. There is a cannibal, a monster, a man inside of your home. And you beckoned him here. 

Even as the revelation occurs to you, you can’t stave your ambition. Of course you do not parley with Ghost for the sake of it. There is nothing this new knowledge grants. But since he left to do his day’s errands, your stomach has made its presence known. Opening up like an early grave, emptiness gnarled beneath a soil bed as with roots of a tombstone tree. Every moment, every word, you are reminded of its cavity. Too long, it says, you’ve ignored the pangs of hunger that seized this trench in an iron fist. Priorities, you would reply, as you surrendered food to brew your poultice. And so your nose is healed, great, but your shelves are empty and your head is faint. Hunger surplants the cold as your imminent killer.

“My mum taught me how to fix a good stew.” You begin, rolling your sticky tongue and tucking both hands beneath your bottom, cautious not to set this mousetrap off yourself. The pressure is grounding, at least; you match your breathing to the pulse you feel in your fingertips. “I trust it would be better than raw meat.”

A pause. Ghost’s spine straightens. Then, a panic. You’re thrown off your conviction when your chest flutters and you feel it in your brain. Where is that wily being? The woman who cheated her familiar into a season’s worth of labour? You feel as though you have regressed; screeching infant, lungs flaring with a rush of new air. You cannot face this, you think, but you’re already halfway out into the world. The sink squeaks off. 

You just pray your stomach doesn’t make noise in the new silence. 

“Is tha’ so?” He says, though does not turn to look at you just yet. 

“I could try.” The words bubble like bile in your throat. It is in your best interest to stay quiet. Say no more. He’s being ambiguous so you will reveal too much in turn. The game is transparent. You can see the water-worn rocks on the river bed, so clear it’s like they’re clasped between your hands instead. Yet– “If I had the ingredients for it, ‘course.” 

There. The lip of the cliff. How odd of you to see it only as you plummet towards a frothy scree. Ghost snaps, live lightning in heated air, or otherwise like the rocks that impale you on landing. In two strides, you’re cornered by a creature with scorn harrowing the space between its brows. You were stupid not to plan an escape route, stupid to arm yourself with nothing but flimsy subtlety. There was always the risk of it coming to this, you knew that. 

“You think y’can rummage for loopholes, hm?” He leers, eyes searing holes into yours. “A trick is only charmin’ on the first go, pet. More than once and y’start to stink of stale piss.” 

“I don’t–” 

He snatches your jaw, thumb and ring fingers digging an aching grip onto either side. Your protest warbles pathetically, dies, chokes you with its rot. It’s difficult, no– impossible to decipher what he's mad at. A small, fresh part of you actually hoped he’d see your cunning as artful. But it seems your station has come back to haunt you; another mortal whose brain cannot keep up with her heart. Even if one is in the right place, you will go about chasing it in the wrong direction. Artful is too shiny of a laurel, then. Trick, too, is being charitable 

“Do not play coy with me, girl. I do not take kindly to underhand deals.” Snarled right above you, spit spattering across your face. Your mandible squeaks, bone-deep pain flaring where he tightens the pressure around your face. Fox blood flavours his breath. There is a ringing in your head – shrill, like water in the tin sink. “If you need something from me, you will admit it and cope with the terms I have in turn.”

“I-I’m sorr-eeeee.” Your apology wheezes thin when he thrashes your head in place. It is either that or the relentless force on your jaw that tears a new world of pain down your neck. The tears are reactionary, then. Hot and foggy and not at all a sign of fear. “Ah- I’m sorry! I won’t– I didn’t mean to offend y-you.” 

“S’too fuckin’ late for that. You’ll follow through, before I take wha’ I want anyway.” He shakes his head. “Ask nicely for what y’need then, pet. Go on.” 

“Nothing! Nothing anymore, please. Jus’ let me go, Ghost.” Perhaps the universe disdains your insincerity, because in a hand dealt by its inexorable irony, your stomach buckles and purls a foul sound. Like it heard your words and protests the withdrawal, gurgling out loud to whoever will address it instead. 

And he does. He does. 

“You’re hungry, hm? That it?” He shoves your limp body onto the floor, dismissive of the pleas you now regulate to your feet, thrashed wildly to strike at his shin. Everything he does is callous, mean, agitated like the sulphur and magma that run thick beneath the earth’s crust. And though it is not your first encounter with a creature of that ilk – you have had your run-ins with over-excited men – the intentionality behind it has never been more flagrant. Ghost does it to hurt you. “Yeah, been neglecting you, haven’ I? Forgot pets couldn’ feed themselves.”  

“I’w scrounge somefing up mysef.” You struggle, speech impeded as he crushes your cheeks inwards. Pearl dust flakes your gums. 

“Should ‘ave thought of tha’ before. Even if I end up breakin’ every bone in that fine skull of yours, I won’t let up. Say it, then, you daft thing.” 

The scaling of your options is instantaneous. Even as your immediate conscious lags behind, activity lights the back of your head and cracks its way out of your mouth before you can catch it. It took weeks for your nose to heal, much less your skull. You’re consuming fuel quicker than you can replenish, running on a backlog of quick-burning fat. And all of it can be taken care of if you just give in, to what will likely only be a few hours of degradation. 

(Cavewoman. Primordial. Primitive impartiality, or survival of the fittest. The world has only come so far since then, and even within its concentrated civilizations, there is no aegis but for those who come up on top. You cannot expect your liberties to be met anywhere. That, you know too well.

But here, in this feral forest, at least you can use the violation to your benefit. At the very least, you will not be exiled, cast as witch for taboo of saying the greater word. 

You are already macerated on rock bottom. And at the barren abyss of all leasts, Ghost will not hang a cross pendant above you as he stomps it in.)

He must see the surrender wet your eyes, for the grip on your jaw lessens. 

“I am hungry.” You cry, finally, lashes fluttering shut so as to guard your tears. “I am hungry. This winter has dashed my garden and I do not know how to hunt. The cushions jab into my ribs when I sleep. I feel as though my stomach will consume me from the inside out, and I’m desperate. I am desperate, and I am so, so hungry. And I am asking for your help. Please.” 

If there was any part of you that still believed he would choose pity, it is muffled and killed. You hear the scratch of fabric as he undoes his pants. Final, failing. Rustled hand behind confines, stench of musk stiffening the air. For a few seconds, you opt to remain blissfully ignorant – keep your eyes closed and imagine that the presence before your face is something different. A purifying flame, tender cut of meat, a smiling face before things fell downhill. It all sounds too good to be true, and they are. Sooner or later, you tell yourself, you have to face the misery. 

So, you force yourself to behold it before he takes that upon himself. 

His cock is heavy. Fat and oversized, length not having suffered for its breadth. Ruddy where the head peaks from an uncut tip, hard already, but bowed under the weight of itself. If you had anything to expel, you would’ve done so by now. A thicket of hair fledges his groyne – a shade of dark that pales his scarred skin in comparison – and it reeks of sweat and miasma. 

He taps it on your cheek, prespend sticky and warm. You flinch as though you have been beaten. 

“Just one thing af’er the other with you, pet. Think this’ll give y’something to fix yourself on.” 

“I don’t– I’ve never–” His thumb hooks over your bottom teeth, prying your trap as wide as it can go. Drool slicks the cracked hinges of your lips. “Don’ know how.”

“Not what I’m lookin’ for.” He purrs, cruel humour gracing his tone. Somehow, it is not a reassurance as much as it is a snub. “Jus’ keep your teeth out of the way.” Humiliation washes your neck and ears, rush of blood like white river rapids behind your ears. It is the final swatch, trumpet to armageddon, before your ruin. You suck in a breath and bring your mouth to him.

Ghost meets you halfway, treating the crown of your head as an anchor to thrust forward. Immediately, you let slip his only rule, teeth snapping reflexively at the intrusion. You expect to be backhanded, have your hair ripped from your scalp in relation, or worse. It is a relief, then, when the only force you receive is a knock against your jaw. The rapping shakes your cotton-lined skull, snaps you out of your stupefaction, and you slack all muscles to accommodate his demand.

The mass feeding down your throat vibrates, an appreciative hum coursing through his body. “There you are, little jezebel. Look a’ you takin’ my cock so well.” 

You make no effort to glide your tongue along his veins. To make this pleasurable for him beyond what he takes for himself. True to his word, your familiar does not punish you for it. He knots his hands around your head and fucks your face, careless, cock rearranging the anatomy of your neck as it bludgeons a straight path down. You sway, ragdoll with the motions, knees rubbing abrasively across the floor as he slides you back and forth over it. 

Hypoxia spots your vision, lungs clenching furiously at the obstructed flow of oxygen. You would fasten it all shut, close yourself off from the world, but your eyes bulge a little at the edges, stagnant blood keeping them arid and open. It’s hard to dissociate. Hard to pretend that the steel-wool friction at the tip of your nose, the pendulum-consistent slaps on your chin, are not his pubic hair and balls searing unmistakable marks on your skin. And your series of gags are sloppy, lewd out in the confined air of your home. How could they be anything but damnation? There is no deluding the Maker. 

(No matter how fervently he tried. Marry me, proposed down on both knees. It’ll set this whole fankle right. We’ll hold hands an’ seek penance at the kirk before th’ceremony. My pa will officiate. Yer ma will be thrilled.)

Snot bubbles from your nose, cheeks slick with tears and wayward spit. When he batters forward, it amalgamates in the soft palate beneath your spasming tongue. When he draws out, he takes it with him, viscous strings of saliva bridging the gap. It streams down to your neck, glosses your lips, webs your lashes together. You feel buried beneath its stifling coat, set down into your grave at last. Maggots worm their way into the soft matter of your brain, eat away at the tissue until there’s nothing left but suffocation. Death. Throttling void. 

Your hands flail out, seeking an end to it, but all you find is Ghost.

He slows down once he nears his end. 

The bruising pace he set stutters, balls tightening against your submental. It catches you off guard because, for the past ten minutes, you accustomed yourself to the patterns of his push and pull. For every plunge, there is a retreat, where you will greedily feast on fresh air before being choked back down on his cock. It is a break of tide, an opportunity to paddle your way above water to clear sea-salt from your hollows. A bay to hold onto so you do not drown.

Until now; his forearms twitch and you’re kept in place, forehead squashed onto his mons. You panic, hold on your breath breaking. The heady scent of sweat sweeps over you, laced with the tart products of your mouth – saliva and blood from where your canine pierced your cheek. Prespend, too. The undiluted stink of him. Hair tickles your lips. Your cunt flares, sudden, slickening the chafe of your thighs, but the unwelcome arousal does nothing for you. 

He holds your head down and spurts his load into your gullet. 

There is no room to swallow. It goes in the wrong direction, then – upward – and out your nose. You squeeze your eyes shut, disgusted scream gargling around his throbbing appendage. Distress bloats your head, temples feverish and sweating, nails digging deep impressions into your palms. It’s futile. Useless. Nothing thwarts him but the last dregs of semen spitting out onto your tonsils, pumping himself dry until finally, finally–

Ghost pulls out. You collapse onto the carpet and hack up cum until your throat bleeds. 

The silence afterwards is mortifying, tension palpable enough to writhe up against. Drained, you’ve since pressed your cheek into the puddle of filth, urging pearlescent spend to seep into the fibres below. It'll be a nightmare to clean later, you process slowly. Perhaps you’ll use the bleach, and take the same sponge to your lips.

The monster above you tuts at the display, crouching to your level when you exhibit no interest in rising to his.  

“C’mon, sweet. Wouldn’t want to waste your dinner now.” 

But you’re too weak to lift your head. So Ghost gathers your hair, puppeteering – in a manner rather gentle for your assailant – until you can lap his essence off the floor. 

It tastes like raw venison. You snivel your thanks, and imagine it is exactly that.

i do not have a taglist. to be alerted when i update, please follow @moondirti-archive and turn on post notifs.

[the-witchhunter]

I also should say that this isn’t a uniquely new phenomenon. People have been using these same tricks for hundreds of years. It’s a big reason fortune telling was illegal in the US for years because a lot of people were using it to scam people out of money. Hell it’s still a misdemeanor in New York State and is regulated by various state laws

Harry Houdini was very big into debunking a lot of these kinds of people, not necessarily because he didn’t want to believe, but he was aware of how these scams work due to his experience as a performer and saw them as predatory

Social media just made it easier for people to do it and reach a wider audience. In some ways it’s not as immediately harmful since the financial incentive comes from views and engagement instead of directly paying them but it’s still pretty scummy

Every time I see a manipulative ass tiktoker who does tarot with forceably clickbaity words on the thumbnail like (DONT SCROLL!! HE STILL LOVES YOU) and encourages unhealthy romantic relationships or bad habits or shit like that, I want to reach through the screen and throttle that poster. Those assholes need to be banned from the site.

[pedrospatch]

fall into temptation | three

Jackson! Joel Miller x Preacher’s Daughter Reader

series masterlist

summary: Of all the women to catch Joel Miller’s attention—it just had to be one of the goddamned preacher’s daughters.

warnings/tags: 18+ ONLY, MINORS DNI. SLIGHT PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION OF READER, mentions of her hair which she can put up into braids as well as her style of clothing. despite the nickname Joel gives her, it does not speak to her body type or size. AGE GAP (reader is in her 20’s and Joel is 56). several mentions of religion and religious symbols, reader has a father and two sisters, all who come with names, reader gets put into a a very uncomfortable situation, insecurity, anxiety, Seth is an asshole, protective Joel, he threatens to break someone’s jaw which is a warning in and of itself. SMUT. loss of virginity, reader is inexperienced but not totally clueless, oral (both m and f receiving), risky unprotected p in v sex (please wrap it up), lots of praise and pet names (baby, babygirl, honey, you know, the works), Joel gets a teensy bit rough, creampie, hint of aftercare, ends with a cliffhanger, but also not really if you think about it?

MOODBOARD FOR AESTHETIC PURPOSES ONLY, NO MENTION OF RACE OR BODY TYPE.

word count: 10k

a/n: it was not my intention to post this on jesus day, but here we are. this took forever and a day considering the second part was posted back in september, but i am so so proud of myself for finally completing a wip i could cry. i did a bulk of the editing while i’ve been sick and in all honesty i probably should have asked someone to beta for me because i think i coughed out like 90% of my brain cells this week, but i think it turned out okay. ish.

Somehow, even over the volume of the live music, you could still hear their hushed, astonished whispers.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“Is that Joel Miller with Pastor John’s daughter?”

“What’s she doing holding his hand?”

“He’s got to be at least twice her fucking age—”

Throat bobbing anxiously, you glanced up at Joel.

His shoulders were squared back, his head held high. 

Solid. Steady.

Joel couldn’t seem to care less about the bewildered stares, the judgment that was being flung his way. Not once did he seem to waver. But you?

Oh, you were already starting to crumble underneath it all, on the verge of falling apart right before everyone’s prying eyes. Shame sat heavily inside of your chest, the weight of the feeling suffocating you, making it harder and harder to breathe as it prevented air from reaching your lungs.

It had nothing to do with Joel. Of course it didn’t. It had all to do with you and with who you were. Their beloved preacher’s sweet, innocent young daughter. 

His youngest daughter. 

Suddenly, the whispers were no longer whispers.

“Oh God, she’s not going home with him, is she?”

“That’s not right! Someone should say something!”

“Pastor John would never allow something like this.”

“Poor thing’s naive—she doesn’t know any better.”

Hot, stubborn tears of frustration glazed over your eyes and threatened to spill. It was as if you were a child who didn’t know any better, a gullible, clueless little girl with nothing in her brain who needed to be rescued—saved from the bad, bad man before he did bad, bad things to her.

Had it been anyone else, no one would have batted an eye. No one would have noticed, let alone cared. But it was you that Joel Miller was leaving the bar with in the middle of the night and it was you whose hand he had clasped in his own. That is what made it wrong. That is why it was a problem.

Everyone’s concerns had nothing to do with him at all, they had everything to do with you. You, you, you. You were the sole reason why it was a problem, the reason why he was being perceived as the Devil himself, horns out as he dragged the poor little unsuspecting angel down to the fires of Hell.

“Joel?” Overwhelmed, you instinctively reached for his arm with your free hand. Cold and trembling, your little fingers curled tightly around his bicep, digging into the firm, bulging muscle through the thick corduroy fabric of his sleeve. You whispered his name again. “Joel—”

“S’alright, babygirl,” he reassured you quietly over his shoulder. He gave your hand a comforting squeeze. “S’alright. Just keep your eyes on me, sweetheart. I’ve got you. You just keep on lookin’ right at me, okay?”

Nodding, you inhaled deeply and focused on him. Only him. The broadness of his back and his shoulders. Tufts of hair that curled over the collar of his shirt. Only him. He’s what mattered. He’s all that mattered.

“Almost there,” Joel murmured, squeezing your hand again as the door came into view. “Breathe, baby. We’re almost there. I’ve got you. You’re alright. Ain’t gonna let anythin’ bad happen to you. Promise I’ve got you.”

It wasn’t until his fingers wrapped around the old, brass handle that you finally exhaled the breath you had been holding out in utter relief, though it was very, very short lived. Just as Joel pulled the door open, you felt a hand wrap around your arm. Dry, slender fingers dug into the soft flesh above your elbow as an attempt, and a feeble one at that, was made to tear you out of Joel’s grasp.

The music stopped and the bar fell silent. Everything and everyone came to a sudden standstill, freezing mid dance, mid drink, mid bite, mid gossip.

Shocked, you glanced over your shoulder. “Seth?” you squeaked his name. “What—what are you doing?”

Seth didn’t acknowledge you. His focus was on Joel.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Miller?”

Joel’s anger couldn’t be seen, but it could be felt. So palpable you could have wrapped your fingers around it. It radiated off of him and loomed over the entire bar like an incoming storm cloud. Threatening. Dangerous.

“Where are you taking her?” Seth demanded, his other hand curling around your wrist as he tried, but failed, to snatch you from Joel’s side once more. “Let the girl go! You let her go right now, you hear?”

Caught in between the two men, you nervously turned to look at Joel. Nostrils flared, jaw clenched, seething eyes that did the talking for him. His message was loud and oh so abundantly clear.

If Seth didn't take his hands off you, he wasn’t going to have any hands.

Not after Joel Miller was through with him.

Blazing heat flooded your face. As if it couldn’t possibly get any worse, everyone had now gathered around you to watch the tense encounter, eyes wide, brows raised and jaws practically on the weathered, hardwood floor.

Tommy Miller stood among the crowd, subtly shaking his head, his lips pressed together in a tight, thin line of disapproval as he glowered at his older brother. Would he be looking at Joel like that had it been Esther in your place? If she was the one he was taking home? Would any of this be happening if it was her instead of you?

“Seth.” Uttering his name, you shifted your attention back to him. You sounded calm and collected, despite feeling anything but. Joel’s hand in yours was the only thing keeping you steady and grounded. His touch was the only reason you hadn’t yet spiraled into a state of panic. Clearing your throat lightly, you spoke again and tried your hardest not to waver. “Please let go of me.”

Still fixed on Joel, he spat, “I’ll be damned if I let him take you anywhere.”

“He’s not taking me anywhere, Seth.” Without thinking, the words came tumbling out of your mouth—loud and clear for everyone in that room to hear. “He isn’t forcing me to go with him. I’m making the choice to leave with him. Out of my own volition. Please let go of me.”

Finally, Seth looked at you. His old, worn features were twisted in disbelief. “What?”

You swallowed dryly. Part of you wanted you to shrink away, curl into yourself. Instead, you straightened your posture, forced yourself to stand a little bit taller. Willed yourself to have a backbone for once in your life.

“You heard me,” you said, lifting your chin in defiance. Several onlookers gasped in surprise at your rebellion. Where had this insolence come from? “I’m choosing to leave with Joel. Now, please let go of my arm.”

Behind you, Joel stood silent and still. 

Watching. Observing. Waiting.

He wanted nothing more than to intervene. Rip you out of Seth’s hands and shatter each and every last bone in all ten of his fingers for putting them on you. Had Joel not realized that this was probably the first time in your whole, entire life you’d mustered up the courage to use your voice, he would have easily given into the urge. He wanted to protect you. He needed so badly to protect you. Yet, he knew you weren’t helpless or incapable of standing on your own two feet. He knew you deserved the chance to stand up and speak for yourself after a lifetime of being silenced, a lifetime of being forced to stay in your place, seen but never heard.

“Seth, let go of my arm,” you repeated. It was no longer a polite request. It was a demand.

He scoffed. “Do you honestly think I’m going to let you leave with somebody like him? You think I’m just going to stand back and let him take advantage of you?”

Oh, you hadn’t liked that insinuation, not one bit. 

It caused something inside of you to finally give way.

Snap.

The blood in your veins boiled, ran hot enough to make you feel like you were about to burn from the inside out. “Joel isn’t taking advantage of me! It isn’t like that,” you seethed, furiously. The quiet, well mannered, obedient good girl everyone in Jackson knew was gone. And she could stay gone. In your periphery, you could see Leah elbowing her way through the sea of people to the front of the crowd with an incredulous look plastered on her face. She stood there beside Tommy, who appeared to be just as incredibly bewildered by your outburst. “Don’t treat me like I’m some child who doesn’t know any better! I’m an adult and I’m old enough to make my own choices, okay?”

For a moment, you had forgotten it was Seth standing there in front of you.

“I’m capable of making my own decisions! I don’t need you to dictate my life. I don’t need you to tell me what is and isn’t good for me—controlling what I should and shouldn’t believe in.” Your voice trembled as emotions you’d been suppressing for years bubbled their way up to the surface. Amidst the chaos, you could feel Joel squeeze your hand again, as if silently encouraging you not to lose your nerve. He was your anchor, the only person who could keep your world from capsizing. You knew he wouldn’t let you drown. Not even God, who you had always been forced to believe was your pillar of strength, had ever made you feel this protected. Safe. “I don’t need you to tell me how to live and much less when it’s the end of the world.”

It wasn’t Seth you were addressing.

It was your father.

Your father, who controlled every last thing, from what you would eat to the way that you dressed and how you wore your hair.

Your father, who refused to let you have a mind of your own, who simply could not bear the mere thought of you thinking for yourself.

Your father, whose love felt like shackles, heavy, rusted metal restraints that had been digging into the flesh of your wrists for far, far too long.

“You need to let me go now,” you said, swallowing back the lump in your throat. Once more, you caught Leah from the corner of your eye, your heart lurching in your chest when you noticed her desperately trying to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. She was the only person in the room who understood how you felt. Her rebelliousness only ever masked the pain of knowing her father’s love came with terms and conditions—and the fear of knowing what would happen if those terms and conditions weren’t met. For several weeks, you’d gotten a taste of what she went through everyday, how her fear of putting her foot down led her to run around in secret and live a double life. “Just let me go.”

Seth firmly shook his head. “No! I’m not letting you go anywhere with him. I don’t know what the hell he did to you, but he’s clearly got you all fucking brainwashed.”

That was fucking enough. Joel stepped in, lowering his voice as he said, “Y’know, I’ve just ‘bout lost count of how many fuckin’ times she’s asked you to let her go now and it’s really startin’ to piss me off.” Raising an eyebrow, he laid his offer out on the table. “Here’s the deal. You let go of her right now and I won’t shatter your fuckin’ jaw into pieces. That seem fair enough to you?”

“No.” Seth gripped your arm even harder, prompting you to let out a little yelp as his nails dug painfully into your skin. Though it’d been accidental and he hadn’t meant to hurt you, it didn’t matter. He’d just set off the ticking time bomb that was Joel Miller.

Furious, Joel snatched a fistful of his shirt with his free hand—the other still held yours. Gentle, despite being mere moments away from beating someone to within an inch of their life.

“Joel! Stop!” Tommy’s voice broke through the tension as he approached. His footsteps were slow—careful and cautious, as if he was afraid to make any kind of sudden movement. “Joel. Hey. C’mon now, let’s not do this, alright? Ain’t gotta handle things this way. We can talk it through. No need for anyone to wind up bleedin’ in the fuckin’ infirmary tonight, so just take a breath and let him go.”

Blatantly ignoring Tommy’s attempt to keep the peace, Joel tugged Seth forward, yanking him closer. “Listen to me and listen to me good ‘cause I ain’t gonna fuckin’ say it again. You’d best take your fuckin’ hands off her right now unless you wanna spend the rest of the night sweepin’ up your teeth off the floor of your own fuckin’ bar,” he threatened, his tone enough to send a chill up anyone’s spine, even your own.

“You wouldn’t dare, Miller.” Somehow, Seth managed to keep a straight face, but you could see it so clearly in his eyes and in the tremble of his lower lip—oh, he was terrified of Joel and rightly so. “Not in front of all these people. Not in front of your brother. That wouldn’t be a smart move considering you’re already on thin fucking ice for what you did to that boy’s face, now would it?”

Joel tugged him closer. “Test me,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Go on. Fuckin’ test me.”

His challenge was immediately met with a pathetic look of defeat. Seth dropped your arm and he was released.

“S’what I fuckin’ thought.” Without another word to the man, Joel whirled around and roughly pulled the door open, leading the way outside. As you both descended the building’s old, creaking wooden steps, you began to shiver and he suddenly remembered he’d left his jacket behind inside the bar. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “C’mere, my little dove,” he murmured as he tucked you against his side for warmth. “I’ve got you.”

The first thing he did was light the fireplace.

“Should start warmin’ you up, sweet girl,” he’d said to you over his shoulder. He tossed a log into the blaze as you sat perched on his couch rubbing your bare arms with your hands. “M’gonna go upstairs and find you a blanket, alright? You stay put.”

“Okay,” you’d mumbled, knowing there was no point in telling him not to fuss over you.

Even with the soft, fleece throw blanket he had draped around your shoulders and the warmth of the flames in front of you, you continued trembling. Subtle, but he’d noticed it, felt it when he had sat down beside you and pulled you close against his side. “Oh baby, you’re still shakin’?” That was when he realized you weren’t cold. Frowning, Joel rose to his feet and disappeared down the hallway. He came back to the living room a minute later with a glass of water in his hand. With a small, labored grunt, he dropped to one knee in front of you and held it out. “Here.”

“No, thank you.” You shook your head. “I’m not thirsty.”

“Maybe not, but I’m kinda worried you could be in a bit of shock right now,” he stated, the creases in between his brows deepening as he observed you for any other physical signs of distress. Carefully, Joel lifted the glass to your lips, gently coaxing you to take a drink. “C’mon, darlin’. Think you can be a real good girl for me and at least take a couple sips? Hm?”

Sighing softly, you nodded and did as he asked of you, taking a small sip of water. It soothed your dry mouth and throat and you took another one. Maybe you were thirsty after all.

“Little more, now. Little more. That’s it. That’s my good girl.” Once he was satisfied with how much you’d had to drink, Joel set the half empty glass down on the oak coffee table behind him. He turned back to you, placing his large hands on either side of your thighs below the hem of your dress. He started tracing soft, soothing circles into your skin with his thumbs. “M’real proud of you for standin’ up for yourself back there, sweetheart. Took a whole lot of fuckin’ courage to do that, y’know.”

You glanced down at your hands in your lap. “Mhm.”

“Baby. Hey. Look at me.” One of his hands abandoned your leg and he reached up, delicately taking your chin between his thumb and index finger. He tilted your face upwards, his worried gaze meeting your own. “Talk to me. M’right here.”

“That—that was a lot,” you admitted meekly, shoulders sagging as the adrenaline started wearing off and your body slowly came down from the peak hormone rush. “It was a lot.”

Sighing, Joel’s hand fell away from your face. “Yeah, I know it was a lot, babygirl. I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“No.” You were quick to cut him off. “Don’t be sorry.”

His chest heaved with another sigh, this one deeper, heavier, bearing the weight of his guilt. “Well I am,” he said. He planted his hands on either side of you on the couch and lightly shook his head. “Didn’t even fuckin’ think twice when I pulled you outta that fuckin’ supply closet and took your hand in front of all those people. I was so fuckin’ hellbent on showin’ everybody you were mine that I didn’t even stop and think ‘bout what all it would mean for you. It was selfish of me. Real fuckin’ selfish. And I’m sorry, little dove.”

“Do you regret it?” you asked, quietly.

Joel chuckled in spite of himself. “M’pretty sure I’m the one who should be askin’ you that question, darlin’,” he remarked. “Tell me. Do you regret it? Do you regret me pullin’ you outta that closet?” He momentarily paused. There was a stutter in his heartbeat when you dropped your gaze away from his, silence your only reply. “Do you regret me takin’ your hand in front of everyone?”

Of course not.

You wanted to be his and you wanted everyone to know it. There was no regret, none. 

Still. 

The consequences that you would undoubtedly have to face in the morning were overwhelming. Daunting.

Surely, by then, your father would know about you and Joel. When he came downstairs right after sunrise and he discovered you weren’t in the kitchen helping Lydia prepare breakfast, he would question where you were and make some kind of remark about how you should not be sleeping in this late. He would tell her just how irresponsible it was for you to ignore your duties and obligations to him and the family. Sloth was one of the seven deadly sins, after all. He would make her trek upstairs and wake you, and when she did, your sister would find your bed empty.

Meanwhile, there would be a knock at the front door.

No stranger to having members of the congregation show up on his doorstep when they were in need, be it of prayer or comfort, your father would answer it only to find someone, not in need of solace, but who felt that it was their responsibility and moral obligation to inform him that they had seen his youngest daughter leaving The Tipsy Bison with Joel Miller in the middle of the night, hand in hand.

He wouldn’t believe them.

“Now, that is simply not true,” he would say, offended that anybody would have the nerve to show up at his door and accuse you of something so vile. “That’s not possible. I know my daughter and she would never do such a thing. It must have been someone else that you saw with him. Someone who looked like her, perhaps.”

Then, Lydia would descend the staircase and tell him you weren’t in your bedroom. “She must have gone up to the main street as soon as she woke up,” she would suggest with a shrug, not yet privy to the events that had taken place the night before at the party you and Leah had snuck off to. She never had to worry about you, the good one. “I did notice we were running pretty low on eggs. Sugar, too. She probably wanted to be the first in line at the pantry to—Papa? What’s the matter?”

The color would drain from your father’s face when the realization slowly sank in. No, you weren’t out on the main street picking up eggs for breakfast and sugar for his tea. You were lying up in Joel Miller’s bed—defiled, impure, and with the curse of Eve on your flesh. Even after dedicating his entire life to making sure you did not stray from the path of righteousness, he had failed. You had fallen into temptation. 

There was a chance he would have mercy on you. All you had to do was beg and plead for his forgiveness—and more importantly, for the forgiveness of God. “Vow to atone for your sins,” your father would say, his gaze fixed on the Holy Bible in his lap. He probably wouldn’t be able to look at you, not after what you had done. “Repent. And swear to me, child, that you will never so much as glance in that man’s direction ever again.”

No. That’s not what you wanted.

You wanted Joel and the freedom to be with him. 

But that freedom came with a high, high price.

You were willing to pay it, but you’d be lying if you said you were prepared to navigate the consequences. Then again, was there really any way for someone to prepare themselves to be shunned by their own father?

“I can take you home,” Joel offered quietly, the sound of his voice taking you out of the future and bringing you back into the present.

“What?”

“I can take you home,” he repeated himself. “I can take you home right now if that’s what you want, sweet girl. Won’t give you any kinda grief ‘bout it.”

Confused, all you could do was stare at him.

“Listen to me, baby. You mean a lot to me. More than I can even begin to explain,” Joel reassured you before any kind of doubt could find its way into your mind. “I want you to stay with me. There’s nothin’ on what’s left of this fuckin’ earth I want more than for you to stay here with me. But what you want matters to me a hell of a lot more than what I want.” He reached up, lightly stroking your cheek with his thumb. “If you decide you wanna go home and go back to your family—back to your old man—then that’s where I’ll take you. Okay?”

Your father would give you an ultimatum. But Joel? He was giving you a choice. And he’d respect that choice.

“I wanna free you from your cage, my little dove. But I think we both know you’ve gotta make the choice to fly outta there on your own.” He lightly swept his thumb over your quivering bottom lip, his eyes meeting yours as he whispered, “Door’s wide open for you. What you do next is all up to you.”

“I’m afraid, Joel,” you confessed. A tear slipped from the corner of your eye and rolled its way down the side of your face. He was quick to wipe it away, along with the others that followed. “I do want out of my cage. I really, really do. But I’m terrified. All I have ever known is my family and my faith. I have never been apart from my father and my sisters.”

His expression softened. “I know you’re scared. Can’t promise you things will be easy, but there is one thing I can promise you.”

“What’s that?” you questioned, then waited with baited breath.

He gingerly cupped your cheek in his large palm. “I’ve got you,” he swore to you, just like he had done so back at the bar. “If you decide to stay, I promise I’ll take real, real good care of you, alright? For the rest of my life, I’ll take care of you. You won’t ever have to worry ‘bout a thing with me by your side. Swear it on my life.”

Warmth blossomed in your heartspace and finally, you stopped trembling. Lifting a hand, you curled your fingers around his wrist as your gaze fell to his mouth. “Joel?”

“What is it, darlin’ girl?”

“Kiss me. Please.”

With a gentle nod, Joel’s other hand found your hip, the warmth of it seeping through the cotton fabric of your dress. Leaning in, he brushed his lips against yours. It was a chaste thing, soft and innocent until you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer to you. “Babygirl,” he mumbled against your lips. He deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue through your parted lips and into your mouth. He tasted like bold bourbon and citrus beer. There was a faint hint of tobacco too—you recalled him admitting to you one night in the church house that while he wasn’t all that much of a smoker, at least not like he used to be when living in the zones, he would occasionally partake in the habit if he happened to come across a pack of cigarettes while out on patrol, pairing the nicotine with a drink. He tasted delicious. He tasted delicious because he tasted like yours.

You sank back into the worn, supple brown leather of his couch, tugging him forward so he sank in with you. Over you. Releasing your near death grip on his collar, you managed to wedge your hands in between your bodies and began to claw furiously at the buttons of his shirt, your fingers shaking out of pure desperation to feel him. It wasn’t until you were halfway down that he finally noticed what you were doing and leaned back, catching both of your wrists.

“Baby, wait,” he panted, shaking his head. “Don’t think now’s a good time for that—”

“Joel, please,” you pleaded, the intense ache between your thighs almost too much for you to bear. “Please. I want it. I want you.”

“S’been a rough night for you.” Joel’s voice was hoarse—strained, like he was aching just as much, if not more. “You’re real emotional right now. Vulnerable. Last thing I want is to take advantage of you at a time like this.”

You frowned. Had Seth’s words gotten into his head?

“You’re not taking advantage of me.”

“Darlin’ I just don’t think we should—”

“Joel, please,” you begged him again. “I was so good for you, was I not? Wasn’t I patient, just like you asked me to be?”

His lips thinned into a tight line. He wouldn’t be able to resist much longer. You, his beautiful little temptress of Eden.

“I waited for so long,” you reminded him. “I’ve been so, so good for you. Please, just make me yours already. I don’t want to think about anything else right now. I just want to be with you. Please, Joel. I need you so badly it hurts.”

Christ.

No man could stand it. No man could possibly have the strength to deny you.

With a look of utter defeat, he folded. Before he could say another word or make another move, your greedy mouth was on his, and you kissed him with fervor, with urgency, as you finished the task of unbuttoning his shirt. Pushing it off of his shoulders, the corduroy fabric fell into a crumpled heap behind him, nearly knocking the glass of water off the coffee table. You broke away from him and shamelessly marveled at his mouth watering form—you admired the way miles of smooth, tanned skin stretched over his wide shoulders, broad chest and soft, soft belly. Arousal pooled between your legs and you reached out and raked your fingers down his chest, and over his stomach, going lower and lower, following the trail of coarse, dark hair that led you to his brown leather belt. You clumsily started fumbling with the brass buckle until he caught your hands once more.

“Slow down, my little dove,” he murmured. “No need to rush this. We’ve got all night.” He stood up and held his hand out to you. Time blurred a bit—maybe it was your nervousness mingled with the eager anticipation of what was to come, but there seemed to be a small gap in your memory, a blank space that spanned from the moment you rose off the couch until the moment you found yourself standing in his bedroom where you were about to answer to the call of the flesh.

Dropping your hand, Joel switched on the lamp on his bedside table and kicked off his boots before taking you into his arms. “C’mere, honey.” He nuzzled your cheek with the tip of his nose as he spoke, the scruff of his beard tickling your cheek. “Couple’a rules, sweet girl. I do somethin’ that you don’t like, you tell me. You want me to stop, you tell me to sto—”

Without waiting for him to finish his sentence, you slowly lowered yourself down onto the floor and knelt at his feet with purpose, as if kneeling before an altar, a sacred, holy space. Though you felt anxious, you were eager to worship. “I haven’t forgotten about what I said earlier tonight,” you cooed, noticing the mild look of surprise on his face. “I said I’d make it up to you and I intend on keeping my word.”

All the blood in his body rushed south to his cock and it strained painfully against the crotch of his jeans. “Baby, I—” Again, he was cut off, only this time by the sound of his own groan when your hand brushed up the front of his thigh and over his growing bulge. He glanced down, his heart thrumming painfully hard against his sternum as he watched you reach for his belt buckle.

With all your might, you willed your hands so as not to tremble. It was self-explanatory, what you were about to do, but your total lack of experience sowed seeds of doubt into your mind—you wanted to make him feel good, just like he had made you feel good outside of the church house during services. Just how you knew he would make you feel tonight.

Hand still over his buckle, you pressed the tenderest of kisses to his bulge through his jeans. Then, turning your head, you rested your cheek on one of his thick, blue denim clad thighs and peered up at him through your eyelashes with a small, nervous smile as you confessed what he already knew. “I’ve never done this before.”

Oh, how sweet and endearing you were. Joel reached down and smoothed your hair back and away from your face, tucking it behind your ear. “S’alright, honey,” he crooned, grazing the silkiness of your cheek with his index finger. “I’ll walk you through it. Teach you how to be a real good girl and suck my cock just the way I like it. That what you want, my little dove?”

His filth made your cunt clench hard around nothing.

Slowly lifting your head off of his thigh, you pulled your bottom lip between your teeth and managed a clear, consenting nod as your hands fumbled with his buckle, the clinking sound of metal ringing loudly in your ears. You undid the button on his jeans and pulled down his zipper, your throat drying when you saw the outline of him, his size intimidating even behind the cotton fabric of his faded, black boxer briefs.

With a harsh swallow, you glanced up at him, silently asking him for his permission to continue.

Such a polite little thing, Joel thought to himself. “Go on, sweetheart,” he encouraged.

You tugged his jeans down to the middle of his thighs and hooked your index fingers underneath the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs, pulling them down and freeing his cock. There was a deep, swooping sensation in your belly as you watched it slap up against the lower part of his abdomen. After many nights of sitting in his lap, feeling him through his clothes, grinding your cunt down onto him, you thought you’d at the very least had an idea of what you would be in for, but oh, how wrong you had been. He was so much bigger than you could have imagined, and your stomach swooped again when you realized he was not going to fit. Anywhere.

Licking away the dryness of your lips, you take him in one of your hands, feeling the heaviness of his length in your palm. He was so long and so, so thick.

“Oh fuck,” Joel hissed the curse through gritted teeth, his hips jerking forward involuntarily as your touch sent a charged jolt of electricity shooting up the length of his spine. He looked down at you, his pupils blown wide with arousal. Christ. You hadn’t even done anything to him yet, but seeing you sitting so prettily at his feet was almost enough to make him come on the spot.

Delicately wrapping your hand around him, you found yourself almost in awe at the way your fingertips barely, just barely, touched. The sheer size of his cock dwarfed your hand, and made it seem so much smaller than it really was.

“You’re so big,” you murmured, echoing your thoughts. You licked at your lips again, suddenly feeling ravenous, an appetite that had seemingly come out of nowhere making you salivate. The tip of him was flushed red, slit already glistening—how badly you wanted, needed a taste. Never, ever, did you think you would be down on your knees for anything but prayer, but there you were, starved and desperate to bite into the forbidden fruit.

“What’re you waitin’ for, darlin’ girl?” he croaked.

“Permission,” you replied, sweetly.

“Go right ahead, baby. S’all yours—I’m all yours.”

Yours.

Yours, yours, yours.

Finding your first push of courage, you leaned forward and so carefully swept your tongue along the tip of his length, collecting the slight saltiness leaking from the slit and getting your first delectable taste. With your hand still wrapped firmly around his base, you looked up, your eyes locked on Joel’s face as you flicked your tongue up against the rigid underside of his cock.

“Fuckin’ Christ,” Joel groaned, all of the muscles in his stomach already pulling taut when he felt you dragging your tongue in a slow, purposeful lick along the length of him. “Babygirl.”

“Is that good?” you asked him, sounding hopeful. “Am I doing good?”

“Doin’ so, so fuckin’ good for me, sweetheart. Look so fuckin’ pretty down on your knees for me.”

Pleased, you wrapped your mouth around the head of his length, pressing forward and taking him in as far as you possibly could—which, in all fairness, wasn’t very far. At least not as far as you would have liked. Another groan tore itself from the depths of his chest as your plush, plump lips sealed around him, your tongue warm and wet on the underside of his cock. Moving both of your hands to rest on the sides of his thighs, you began to move your head back and forth, following what felt most natural to you. The nerves you initially felt slowly but surely dissipated, vanishing one by one with every curse, every tremble, every sharp breath.

Joel resisted the urge to buck his hips forward, fought the desire to feel himself at the back of your throat. He needed to be gentle, so careful with such an innocent, pliant thing who had much, much to learn. “Sweet little fuckin’ mouth feels so good around my cock, baby, just like I fuckin’ knew it would. Y’think it can take more of me, little dove? Hm?”

You hummed, the vibration intensifying his pleasure.

“Yeah? Y’trust me?”

Your reply came in the form of a muffled, “Mhm.”

Joel reached down and cradled the back of your head in the palm of his hand. He carefully guided you further onto his throbbing length, slowly feeding you one inch at a time. Your fingers dug into the denim of his jeans. He was much more than a mouthful for you, and you could only take about half of him before he hit the back of your throat, prompting you to gag around him. Drool dribbled out from the corners of your mouth and down the sides your chin, dripping onto your lap.

“Oh fuck, sweetheart. Yeah, that’s it. Little more now, honey,” Joel encouraged. He bucked his hips forward, his head slipping further down your throat. Just when you felt like you were about to choke, he pulled out and you tried your hardest not to cough and sputter as you took in a much needed, precious breath of air. He gave you a few seconds or so to finish catching your breath as he shoved his jeans and boxer briefs further down his legs. He stepped out of the articles of clothing and kicked them somewhere off to the aside, standing before you completely bare. “Open up.”

Your absolute devotion to him bred sweet submission, so as worried as you were that you wouldn’t be able to handle it, you nodded obediently and very willingly did as you were told. 

He guided himself right back into your waiting mouth, pressing deeply. You tried to relax your jaw, reminding yourself to breathe in and out through your nose. Tears streamed down the sides of your face as you did your best to forestall another gag. “Little bit more,” he said, thrusting his hips in a slow, steady controlled rhythm. He advanced even further into your mouth—trusting he wouldn’t suffocate you, nor push you too far past your limits, you opened up wider. He moaned, “Yeah, baby. That’s my good girl. That’s my good fuckin’ girl.”

With a bit of newfound confidence, you hollowed your cheeks and sucked him. You swiped your tongue along the thick, prominent vein on the underside of his cock, earning yourself more of his sweet, sweet praise.

“Fuck, yeah, suck me off, sweetheart. This pretty little mouth was fuckin’ made for sin,” he breathed, guiding your head back and forth with a firm, but gentle hand.

You moaned, the noise muffled around his length. Slick soaked through your panties and coated the insides of your thighs. With another moan, you tightly squeezed your legs together, inwardly reminding yourself that patience was a virtue.

Noticing the way you had shifted, Joel moved his hand from the back of your head, lightly curling his fingers around your jaw. He pulled you off of his cock, a loud, lewd popping sound bouncing off the sage green walls of his bedroom. “C’mere, baby.” He grabbed your arms, effortlessly hoisting you up to your feet.

“What’s wrong?” you questioned him worriedly. “Did I do something wrong?”

Chuckling softly, he brushed a finger along the strap of your dress. You could do no wrong, his perfect, perfect girl. “Of course not, sweet girl. You did so fuckin’ good for me,” Joel reassured you, lightly tracing along your collarbone with his finger and making your flesh erupt in goosebumps. He leaned forward and feathered a kiss onto your lips, murmuring against them, “Are you wet, little dove?”

Before you could even process the query and generate some kind of coherent response, he dove his opposite hand between your thighs, cupping your warm heat in his palm. At this, your weak knees buckled, prompting you to reach out and grab onto his arms to hold steady and keep yourself from falling into a helpless heap on the floor.

“Oh, honey. You’re soaked. That what sucking my cock does to you?” he cooed. He peppered another kiss, this one onto the corner of your mouth. His voice lowered another octave. “Poor little thing. She needs me, don’t she? Needs me to take care of her?”

You whimpered. “Yes.”

“Manners, babygirl,” he reminded you, skimming your cheek with his nose. “Yes, what?”

“Yes, please.”

Humming in approval, Joel withdrew his hand from in between your legs and guided you backwards towards his bed. “Sit,” he commanded gently, bidding you to let go of him. “Arms up.”

Reaching for the hem of your dress, he took great care in pulling it over your head, then discarded the vibrant yellow material over his shoulder, leaving you in nothing but your cowboy boots and thin, cotton white panties. Without a word, he knelt before you and pulled off one boot, and then the other, setting them both aside. He hooked two fingers underneath the elastic waistband of your underwear, coaxing you to lift your bottom off of the bed, just long enough for him to pull them down and slide them down your legs. He was so tender in the manner in which he undressed you.

“Fuckin’ beautiful, beautiful girl,” Joel praised. His dark gaze dragged down the length of your body as you sat before him wearing nothing but the delicate, gold chain around your neck. The holy cross nestled between your supple breasts gleamed in the light of the lamp on the nightstand. He would leave it on until your decision was made, set in stone. “My pretty little dove.”

“Joel.” You whimpered his name, hands curling around fistfuls of his dark blue sheets. You were drenched now, in dire need of some relief. If he didn’t touch you where you needed him most, you would surely lose your mind.

Desperate, you leaned back slightly onto his bed and parted your knees, your folds glistening as you showed him just how badly you needed him.

Joel groaned, almost visibly salivating at the sight. The blazing heat in his eyes sent ripples of desire coursing through your body, straight to your throbbing core.

You opened wider. “Please.”

“Christ, babygirl. Already soakin’ the sheets.” Sliding a finger up along the seam of your pussy, he grazed your clit, the touch light, but somehow still enough to make your hips arch off the mattress as white-hot pinpricks of pleasure danced their way up your spine. He lowered his head and leaned in, your sweet scent drawing him in like a moth to a flame. Just when you were about to start pleading him for more, he dipped his face into the apex of your thighs, his mouth finally, finally, meeting your wet heat.

“Oh!” you gasped, your head falling back. “Fuck!”

Against you, his lips curled upwards into a wicked grin. He’d never heard you curse before, not until now.

Joel took his time devouring you, savoring the essence of your cunt with each broad stroke of his tongue. Sealing his lips around your clit, he flicked the swollen, sensitive bundle of nerves over and over again, eliciting from you some of the sweetest noises that he had ever heard in his entire life. In preparation for what you both knew was to come, he pushed one finger inside of you, the invasion causing you to fist his sheets even harder. He then slipped in a second finger, groaning in sheer, carnal bliss at how your walls squeezed them, at the mere thought of them squeezing his cock in the same manner. How was it that you felt so much tighter this time around?

“Oh God.”

You shouldn’t be saying His name. Not like this.

Not when something this sinful was being done to you.

Hungrily, Joel lapped at you, curling both of his fingers in an upwards motion to hit the perfect spot. He knew you were close, felt it in the way that you squirmed and writhed. Draping his arm across your hips, he pinned them down onto the bed, holding you still as he chased your high as if it were his own.

“Joel,” you chanted his name over and over again in a fevered prayer. Releasing the sheets, your hands found his hair, tangling themselves in his curls. Your head fell back, and you cursed at the ceiling of his bedroom. “Fuck, fuck, fuck Joel—”

Pushing onto his mouth, you came, moaning his name so loudly you were certain the whole neighborhood was getting an earful.

Joel pulled back, his beard and mustache slicked with your spend. “S’right, honey,” he crooned, his digits still buried to the knuckle as he helped you to ride out your wave of ecstasy. Eventually, when he pulled them out, you tried closing your shaking legs. He tsked and shook his head, wrenching them open further. “No, no, baby. Keep those pretty thighs open for me. Wanna see her.” He admired his work, his cock twitching at the sight of your pussy, swollen and shining, and ready to take him.

Like earlier, there was another brief skip in time.

Mind still in a haze, you hadn’t even realized that he’d risen to his feet and guided you further up onto his bed, not until you were lying on your back with your head on his pillow and he was hovering over you, his hard length brushing against one of your messy, inner thighs when he settled himself between your legs. 

Your heart began to pound in a mingle of both fear and excitement.

Joel’s eyes met yours. His pupils were blown so wide, there was not one, single trace of brown anywhere to be seen. “Y’absolutely sure about this, little dove?”

Your response came without hesitation. “Yes. I’m sure.”

He pressed a kiss to the underside of your jaw. Your submission was a gift, and he would cherish every last second of your surrender to him, savor it for as long as he possibly could. His lips, soft and warm, skimmed along the column of your throat, leaving a trail of fresh goosebumps in their wake.

If, by some chance, you decided that you wanted to go back to your father and to your faith, Joel didn’t know how he would find it in himself to let you go, not after this. Of course, he would have to let go, though.

The last thing he wanted was to help free you from one cage just to stick you right back into another. While he was no stranger to loss, he had to admit to himself that to lose you would be a knife to whatever was left of his heart.

Shoving the thought out of his mind, he reached down and gripped the base of his cock, pumping it in his fist before running the leaking head along your puffy lips, coating himself in your wetness with the hope it would ease some of the pain you were bound to feel. “Ready, babygirl?” he asked you, lightly teasing your entrance. “Might hurt a bit. M’gonna go slow. Just need you to relax for me, alright?”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got you,” he promised.

You nodded, saying softly, “I know.”

Though he knew he had all of your trust, Joel could still sense your anxiousness. He reached out for your hand, lacing your fingers together with his own as he gingerly pressed forward and eased himself into you, taking the very innocence you had been taught your entire life to preserve, one slow, careful inch at a time.

“Oh—Joel!” You cried loudly at the initial stretch, your pretty face scrunching in discomfort. Tightly slamming your eyes shut, sparks flew behind your eyelids when he finally bottomed out. The burning sting in between your thighs was too overwhelming, almost impossible to cope with. He felt so enormous within you, you could have sworn he was in your belly. Another broken cry fell from your lips and he swallowed it with a comforting kiss.

“Jesus Christ,” he hissed against your lips, a thin sheen of sweat coating his brow, neck, and chest. He wasn’t sure where he found the strength, but he suppressed his urge to thrust. Instead, he dropped his face into the hollow of your neck and waited, giving you the chance to adjust to him. He mumbled against your skin. “Doin’ so good for me, sweet girl. Y’know that? You’re doin’ so fuckin’ good for me.”

Even in discomfort, you preened at his praise.

He squeezed your hand, and after a minute, he gave an experimental thrust of his hips—and then another and another before he ceased his movement once again. He was so big and you were so deliciously full of him.

Eventually, the pain subsided, and you found yourself asking, no, begging for more. “Move.” Your other hand found itself cupping the side of his face, coaxing him to lift his head and allowing your gazes to meet. Your soft, plush thighs parted further to help accommodate the breadth of his hips. “Please, Joel. I need you to move—I need you to fuck me.”

Surely, you would be the death of him.

He drew his hips back with cautious, tender care, then advanced in the same manner to fill your precious cunt all over again. He did it over and over, your pleasured moans encouraging him to begin picking up the pace. He drove his cock in and out of your weeping pussy, the slapping of flesh against flesh, the lewd, wet squelch of you around him inspiring him to fuck you harder, faster. And the noises you were making?

There was something oh so beautiful about your cries, sweet raptures of submission as you laid there beneath him, all too graciously taking everything he had to give you like the good, good, good girl you were for him.

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetheart,” Joel rasped. “Look at you—look at the way you take my fuckin’ cock, honey.”

And you did.

Glancing down, your gaze fell between your bodies and you watched in awe, openly marveled at the way Joel slid in and out of your cunt, how he knocked hard so deeply inside of you, driving himself as far as he could possibly go.

“Fuck Joel, I’m gonna—” You tried warning him as the pressure in your belly neared its peak, but you tumbled over the edge before you even had the chance to finish your sentence. Arching up off off the bed, you pressed your chest against his, your fingers squeezing his own so hard you feared you might break them.

“That’s it babygirl, let go,” he grunted, speeding up his thrusts. “Squeeze my fuckin’ cock—just like that. Good girl. My perfect, perfect girl.”

You didn’t quite get the chance to let the praise sink in.

Joel pulled himself out of you, and with ease, he flipped you over onto your belly. His hands gripped your hips and pulled them up off the mattress, his fingers moving to firmly knead the fleshiest part of your ass. He leaned over you, the head of his cock nudging at your hole. “Y’think you can handle a little bit more, sweetheart?” he whispered the question into a tumble of messy hair, the delicate scent of the lavender shampoo you used to wash it filling his senses. “Answer me, little dove.”

“Yes,” you replied breathlessly with a nod. “I can.”

With a satisfied hum, Joel sank into you, this second stretch not quite as overwhelming at the first, but still intense. “Relax,” he murmured, hunching further over your quivering back. He pressed a kiss onto the top of your head and then leaned down to brace his hands on either side of you. “Need you to be sweet for me just a bit longer, okay, baby?”

“God,” you whimpered when the heaviness of his balls came to rest on your sensitive clit.

It was the second time you’d uttered His name.

Joel almost grinned at the irony. He found his rhythm, groaning in gut-deep satisfaction with each snap of his hips—each smooth stroke in and each smooth stroke out.

“Oh fuck, sweet girl.” Heaven was indeed a real place, and Joel Miller was buried in it to the hilt, right at this very moment.

He was getting closer and closer.

Maybe it was your eagerness to help him reach his own release mingled with the pride you knew you would feel once you did that gave you a second wind, a fresh, new burst of energy. You planted your hands firmly on his pillow. Rolling your bottom lip between your teeth, you curved your spine and pushed back onto Joel with purpose, meeting his thrusts halfway as you rode his aching length to the satiation that waited for him at the end.

“There’s my girl,” he rasped. “Oh fuckin’ Christ—”

No way he could live his life without you now.

He needed you.

He needed you so much more than you needed him.

Joel slipped an arm around your shoulders, across your chest.

“Oh!” you gasped as he then yanked you back, pulling you flush against him. The rough crash of your back against his chest, combined with the angle in which he was fucking you knocked the wind out of your lungs.

His lips were at the shell of your ear. “Stay,” he panted, his breath hot against your cheekbone. He wrapped his other hand lightly around your throat. Relentless, were his hips now—his movements had become frantic. Desperate. “Stay with me, baby.”

Even as you fought to catch your breath in the position he had you in, you picked up on the fact that he wasn’t asking you of it, nor was he demanding you of it.

He was begging you.

Him, the most feared man in this town. Begging you?

“Joel,” you choked.

“Please, my little dove,” he pleaded, turning your head towards him. His mouth was then on the corner of your own, his beard roughly scratching the soft and delicate flesh of your cheek. “I need you, babygirl. Stay with me. Please, just fuckin’ stay with me.”

Your hands curled around his wrists. “Yes, I’ll stay,” you moaned. “I’m yours, Joel. I’m all yours. I—I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’ll stay with you.”

A low, guttural sound rumbled through his chest. Joel firmly took hold of your cross, and without so much as a warning, he ripped the chain from around your neck and tossed it somewhere over his shoulder. He heard it land on the hardwood floor with the tiniest, faint clink the moment he spilled into you, ropes of warm release coating your fluttering walls. Curses and groans spilled from his lips and into your neck. Your cunt clutched at his pulsing cock, greedy for every last drop of his spend she could get.  

Once you were filled, you both collapsed beside each other on the bed, heaving to catch a steady breath.

“Y’okay, sweetheart?” Joel managed to ask, his chest still rising and falling rapidly.

Exhausted, all you could do was nod and utter, “Mhm.”

He exhaled an amused huff through his nose. “C’mere.” He reached for you and pulled you against his side. He draped an arm around your shoulders, holding you as close to him as was possible. “Y’did so good, honey.”

Your mouth curled into a small, contented smile.

Several minutes had passed by, and despite telling him that you were too tired to even think about moving, Joel made you get up and use the bathroom, and while you did so, he ran a clean washcloth under warm water. “Here, darlin’. Let me clean you up,” he’d said, his lips meeting your forehead in a loving token of affection before he sank down onto one knee and ran the damp cloth along the insides of your thighs. He took extreme care when he wiped at your swollen folds, knowing you were still sensitive to the touch. “There we go. All done, now.”

Not long after, you were both back in his bed, wrapped up in his sheets.

Yawning, you nuzzled into bare his chest, your eyelids feeling heavier and heavier with each and every second that ticked by. You’d started drifting off when you heard his voice.

“Baby?”

“Hmm?” you answered sleepily, eyes still closed.

“Did you mean what you said?”

“Mean what, Joel?”

There was a brief pause. “Y’know, when you said you’d stay with me.”

Snuggling closer to him, you mumbled, “Mhm. Of course I did.”

“S’not gonna be easy,” Joel murmured into your hair.

“I know.” You yawned. “But I have you.”

“You do. You’ve got me—and I’ve got you, babygirl.”

“Mm. I know that too, Joel.”

You felt him kiss the top of your head and then fell fast asleep in his arms.

The sun bloomed over the Grand Tetons.

Your father would wake soon, that’s to say if he wasn’t up already.

The nerves began to set in.

Joel must have sensed it. “Breathe, baby. S’gonna be okay,” he soothed, squeezing your hand.

With one of his warmer, heavier jackets that normally didn’t see the light of day until winter season draped around your shoulders, the two of you made your way down the road and towards your house. Or better said, towards your father’s house. Because after what you were about to do, that yellow and white cottage would no longer be a place you could call home.

He led you up to the porch. “Y’sure you don’t want me to go in there with you?” he asked, quietly.

You could have laughed. You almost did.

“Do you believe that to be a wise choice?”

“No, I reckon it ain’t the best idea,” Joel admitted with a sigh, raking his free hand through his unkempt, salt and pepper hair. He looked up at the house, then back at you. “Look, little dove. No matter what happens in there, just know that everythin’ will be alright. M’gonna take care of you. For the rest of my life, I’ll take care of you. I’ll try my hardest to be everythin’ you need.”

“You already are, Joel,” you said, your gaze earnest.

His chest swelled with warmth.

Truth be told, Joel didn’t know how he had managed to defy the odds—how he, of all people, had managed to make his way into that sweet, innocent, beautiful little heart of yours, but somehow he did, and he would not take this responsibility lightly.

He brushed your lips with his and promised, “Gonna be waitin’ right here, okay?”

“Okay.” Inhaling deeply, you willed yourself to let go of his hand and took a step back. You then started up the porch steps on wobbling legs. When you made it to the top, you glanced over your shoulder at Joel, who gave you a subtle nod of encouragement. Exhaling slowly, you reached for the knob with trembling fingers and turned it, opening the door. You stepped inside, your heart dropping into your stomach when you saw your father sitting there at the foot of the staircase, as if he’d been waiting for you. He had been waiting for you. Fully dressed, he sat on the second to last step with both hands folded on his bible in his lap, a rosary clutched between them. “Papa?”

He said nothing. Instead, he silently observed you—his eyes glazed over the men’s jacket and the short dress you wore underneath it, the disheveled, loose hair and kiss swollen lips. Your holy cross nowhere to be seen.

“Papa.” You swallowed harshly and shifted your weight anxiously from the heel of one boot to the other. “We, um—we really need to have a talk.”

He peered around you, catching a brief glimpse of the man standing outside, waiting for you at the foot of the porch.

He cleared his throat, lightly. “Yes, child. I suppose that we do.”

Nodding tightly, you turned around and slowly closed the door. Joel’s words rang in your mind over and over, giving you the push of strength you knew you would need.

I’ve got you.

divider credit goes to @saradika 🤍

[queenie-the-court-jester]

that isn't very holy of you :/

Yandere church boy x gn!reader

It came out shittier than I hoped for. Not proofread 🌺 I'll fix this when I have the time

Tw: religious themes, noncon mention, minor cult mention

✝️ you had just arrived in the small town of morning star. Having been needing a break from the city life, you rented a one bedroom cabin close by. Planning on staying here for a month, you quickly headed towards your new home, very eager to start exploring the area

✝️ wandering around the town square, it seemed everyone knew eachother. A family like community perhaps? Maybe that's why they all kept staring at you as passed through, must not be use to new faces

✝️that was until a group of children approached, asking you to come play ball with them. You couldn't say no to their puppy dog eyes, and the adult's judgemental stares so you agreed. And it was fun surprisingly! You noticed none of the children had any phones.. or the grown up's for that matter

✝️your first week there you were unsettled, but you just pushed it off as the townsfolks strange behavior, Focusing on unpacking and enjoying your stsy. Until one of the school teachers, a kindergarten one, knocked on your door on a sunday

"hi there honey! On behalf of the people I'd like to sincerely apologize for the cold welcome. It's just been a hard year for all of us! So to make it up you, won't you come to church with us on this fine morning?"

✝️ whether or not you're religious yourself, she managed to convince you to come along. Chatting the whole walk there. Talking about her husband, her children. She mentioned something about having a son your age but you weren't really paying attention

✝️ walking through the grand double doors of the church house, she sat you on the front row with the pastors family, next to a young man. You were startled as she sat on the other side of you, leaning in to whisper In Your ear as she pointed at the pastor preaching

"that's my hubby right there. He's a handsome fella ain't he?"

✝️david looked at his mother in disbelief, he told her a few a times he found you attractive and now look at her! He could practically see the gears turning in her head. thankfully you seemed preoccupied thinking, so he did his best to seem normal while his poor heart beated 300 mph

✝️after the sermon, david turned to you and have you a sheepish smile

"hi.. my name's David, but you can call me dave.. its.. nice to meet you"

✝️you and David hit it off, unlike all the other people. He didn't constantly talk about praising god and forcing his religion down your throat. He was kind, understanding. Laughing at your jokes and nodding along to your words. He never met someone so.. ethereal

✝️growing up, he had a hard time believing in his small towns "god". Watching them cut up and sacrifice newcomers to their false idols, he felt sick to the pit of his stomach heading their screams. But he could definitely devote his cause to you...

✝️he trapped you in this shitty town when he asked you out on a little date a few days later. Unaware he drugged your food and dragging you into his home, waking up chained to a bed. You couldn't tell how long you've been there, but every time you'd try to escape he'd punish you in bed. Not letting you cum or overstimulating you to the point of tears. Why would you want to leave something that can make you feel so good?

✝️he grew up desensitized to blood and gore, so he's confused when you're screaming and crying. Why are you doing that? Don't you know that this is what happens to bad spouses? What do you mean you're not married either? ofcourse you are. Stop being so difficult...

✝️nobody blinks an eye when he strides into town with you on a collar and leash. And that's when you realized, you should have left earlier. Because the whole town was sick in the head. It wasn't like you could call for help because he fucking destroyed your electronics and the people don't even have phones. Something about wifi signals can brainwash you

✝️ he's whipped for you, that much you can obviously tell. but he's smarter than he looks. Eating dinner with his family is just painful,since all they talk about is God god god. It hurts your ears with how often they just Randomly start singing praises. It's bad enough they force you to watch their cult church activities...

✝️if you give in to his demands, he'll let you off the leash but you have to stay close by at all times. If you don't, he'll have to make his punishments a little more extreme. There's also a possibility he'll force you to help around the town. whether that be looking after the children or just running around doing errands. The shock bracelet on your ankle stops you from running into the woods..

✝️if you don't, well.. you wouldn't mind if you became permanently handicapped right?

"don't be so difficult sweetie.. just stay still and it'll cut right through okay?'

[localkiss]

Heavenly sin

virgin pastor's son!leon kennedy x virgin fem!reader

cw: guilt!! p in v, porn watching (has some "intense" sex ig??), needy sex, virginity loss, creampies, thinking about god during sex, humping (dry at one point), oral (f receiving), awkwardness, CHECK-INS!!!, dirty talk, begging, soft ish dom!leon, pet names, mentions of daddy kink but only once, pregnancy mentioned a couple times, Leon's a sweetheart, goofy ending, rough ish treatment only once, confessions!!

wc: 6k...🧍🏻‍♀️

note: barely proof read and I don't know shit about church or anything like that... Lmk if I missed any tags! Also inspired by @moolvn's bot!

@valkyrurr @rigorwhoring @marymustdie @tatumrileyslover @frostywintersnow @queenofstresss haii yall ! :3

It's around 10 in the morning, and you're dressed in a flowy black dress with flower patterns on it. Perfect for church and for this wonderful spring weather. Pulling your hair back into a low ponytail, you get out of your parents car. They have already gone inside the church.

Walking briskly to the entrance, you take note of the flowers that are planted on each side that're beginning to bloom in the glowy sunlight. You make it in time to sit next to your parents before the prayer begins.

You bow your head and begin to listen to it. Soft shuffling is heard, and then there's a warmth on your right side, as if a heater were turned on.

Peaking out of your right eye, you see the pastor's son, Leon. Dressed in dark wash jeans and a white button up. He tilts his head towards you and smiles, mouthing, "Hello."

You smile and shake your head, closing your eyes to listen in on his father recite a prayer, so that the Holy Spirit will help us all understand God's words.

Despite trying to listen to him preach, your mind wanders off to the boy next to you. How his muscles ripple underneath his shirts. (which are always fitting for him. Like how?) And the way his beautiful oceanic eyes shine with purity. Especially when he's preaching about how God is constantly saving and bettering him and how important he truly is in his life. The way his brown hair flows in the wind and how it falls into his eye whenever he looks down.

It's all beautiful to you. You'd rather worship Leon than God. Would it be a sin to worship man instead of the Lord? Probably.

Every time you spoke with Leon, you felt dirty. You were filled with these disgusting, sinful feelings. You were afraid of it rubbing off on him and getting into trouble. Getting called the devil. Shunned and kicked out of the house for having feelings you didn't know how to fucking handle.

After all, you were only human. One with needs, thoughts, feelings, and insatiable cravings for a certain man beside you.

Once the pastor stops the prayer, everything else goes by quickly. You try not to stare at Leon while his father is reading aloud hymns. But it's impossible.

He catches your eye and flashes you a boyish smile. You look away. It's quite embarrassing to have been caught staring at him. You couldn't help it.

A couple hours later, the service ends. You get up and stretch your limbs, ready to leave.

A large hand grabs onto your forearm. Warmth surges through your veins, all the way up to your midsection.

Turning your head, you see that it's Leon. 

He lets go of you with a smile. "Are you busy today? I was wondering if you'd like to come over."

Biting your lip, you think for a moment. Looking over at your parents, they give you a nod of approval.

"I'm free. I can come over today." 

Both of you walk towards the exit, and he opens the door like a gentleman. You mutter a small "thank you" and step outside. 

The cool, light breeze washes over your body like a cold shower. It feels refreshing after being in a stuffy room for more than an hour. Breathing it in and letting it out, you turn towards Leon.

He squints at you with a small smile, motioning to follow him. You oblige, putting your hands on the bottom of your dress and bunching up the fabric so that it doesn't fly up.

By the time you guys make it to his house, your feet are dying in the black flats you're wearing. Rubbed raw on your heels by your pinky and big toes.

You sigh in relief as you enter his house, slipping your shoes off by the door.

The both of you walk into the kitchen and grab a cup of water. Heading upstairs to his room. You try to push down the nerves and excitement bubbling in your guts, but it's so hard. 

All you guys ever do is read, listen to the radio, and talk about your guys's jobs. Not all exciting, but laying in his bed and being so close to him is what gets your panties soaked. Maybe you are the devil's spawn. Getting aroused by just being in Leon's vicinity. It's bad. Real bad.

He opens his door and walks in, laying down on his plush queen-sized bed. His hair falls to the sides of his face as he closes his eyes. Breathing in deeply and then exhaling slowly.

You sit on the bed, eyeing him up while his eyes are closed. Noticing the way his veins on his hands are popping out, the small little freckles that paint his face and neck, and the way his lips look so velvety.

Wondering what it would feel like between your legs, your calves, and your neck. You shouldn't be thinking about him like this. It's wrong. But it feels so right.

"So, uh, what are we going to do?" You mutter quietly, tearing your gaze away from the white man beside you.

"I thought that we could just hang out." 

"Okay." You scratch your head for a moment, looking at one of the posters on his wall. It's a poster for The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time. It's probably one of the only games his parents approve of. 

"Actually, hold on." He sits up slowly and begins to walk towards his desk, fishing something out. He holds up a CD with a grin. "I found this lying around on the bookstore floor. I thought that we could check it out."

Motioning with a nod of his head towards his computer. The thick monitor has the circular silver Dell logo on it at the bottom. Paired with his grey and black mouse.

Popping it into his PC as it whirrs on, you snatch his swiveling chair, making him sit on the uncomfortable wooden chair next to it. Maybe you should get a new best friend, thinking about how you come over so much that he has gotten another chair just in case you guys get on his computer.

You take over and open the Windows Media Player, then double-click on the CD's name. Spice it up in the bedroom! What an odd name. 

Turning up the volume on his mini speakers that're alongside his monitor as you wait for the media to load.

A woman and a man appear in the frame, with a messy bed behind them. She's hardly wearing any clothing, only her undergarments and stockings are on her figure. Meanwhile, the man is only dressed in his briefs.

You feel your cheeks burn red hot, swallowing thickly at the video. Afraid of what's going to happen next and afraid of looking at Leon after this surprise of a CD, you continue to look straight ahead.

They don't even introduce themselves, but they say one thing: "Here's how to spice things up in the bedroom. Watch and learn."

Shifting in the cushiony chair, you unconsciously grab onto the armrests.

The next part shows the woman lying down with her legs spread open. The man walks into the frame and sits on the floor next to the end of the bed. Putting his face in between her legs, he kisses her thighs. Trailing up to the bend of her knees and then to her ankles. Repeating the same for her other leg. 

Then he begins to leave small bite marks and bruises on her inner thighs. With each of them, her hips jump, and small moans leave her lips.  

You squeeze your thighs together, feeling your most sacred parts ache with need. Hoping Leon doesn't notice it. 

But he did, just didn't want to point it out and embarrass the both of you even more than you guys already are. He's always staring at you subtly. He's not doing any better on his end, cock filling out in his jeans, begging to be freed from its confinement.

He's just thinking about the kind of noises you'd make if he kissed you there. But he shouldn't think about that. His heart sinks into his stomach, feeling guilty for even having those sorts of thoughts about you from time to time. He wanted to baptize himself again and again until those thoughts clouded him no more.

Leon always had to shower in cold water to make all of the pent-up need go away from his dick. He was afraid to touch himself. Especially to the thought of you. He thought you didn't deserve to be sexualized. How wrong it is to even imagine your lips on his! How soft and plush you'd be against his body.

Feeling like the devil has made its way into both of your bodies. Lust coats both of your frontal lobes, coaxing you into continuing to watch this sinful CD. 

The man begins to lick and kiss her panties which makes her noises grow louder and breathier. You hope to God that his parents don't come home anytime soon.  

He slips her panties off, and her precious parts are exposed to the camera. Leon makes a small gasping sound, and you snap your head towards him.  

"Leon, I.. I don't know if we should watch this. This is... wrong. I feel dirty, Leon." You search his eyes, hoping he'll agree, but he just blinks slowly at you.  

"I-I think we should continue. Don't act like this doesn't pique your interest," he mutters back. His eyes are slowly beginning to darken. 

Turning your focus on the screen, you hear him noisily slurping away between her thighs. The woman begins to get louder, and her fingers slot through his hair and pull him closer.  

She yells out, "I'm cumming!" And soon her legs squeezed shut on his head, her body convulsing and lunging forward to curl in on itself.  

"Fuck baby, that was so hot," He comes up and kisses her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and flipping her over onto her stomach. Fumbling with his black briefs, tugging them down and stepping out of them.  

You squirm uncomfortably, not sure if you can handle seeing a random man naked. But you gulp down the bile crawling up your throat, mixed in with sickening guilt.  

His cock stands up to attention, the tip as red as a tomato. A patch of hair surrounds it, leading down between his legs. He strokes it a couple of times, lolling his head back with a loud groan.  

"You ready, slut?" Tapping himself against her folds. 

"Y-Yes sir, I'm ready." The woman frantically nods and pushes up on her elbows, watching him sink into her hole.  

He grips her hair as soon as he's fully sheathed inside, pulling her towards him. Making her see how they're connected. You bite your lip as you watch this couple go at it for about five minutes. Watching them change positions and get louder and louder with each minute that passes by.  

He puts his hand on her throat and slaps her face, breasts, ass, and privates. It all makes you feel fuzzy inside, like you drank too much alcohol. The world is slowly starting to spin, with all thoughts going straight down between your thighs.  

But the way he talks to her is what really gets you.  

"You like that slut? Fuckin' taking daddy's cock so well, fuck."  

"Good girl. I know you can take it." 

"Yeah, cum on me, baby, squeeze this fat dick."  

"Stupid fucking whore, practically crying for me to creampie this tight little pussy. Isn't that right, baby? God, you know you want my cum stuffed in you."  

Her punched-out moans—the way she's clawing at the bed and sometimes at him—is what gets Leon excited. The way she can't even say anything remotely coherent to the man gets him so hard, it fucking hurts. Leon's boxers are practically stuck to his cock. 

Leon's hand drifts towards his groin, shifting it so it doesn't press against the zipper of his jeans. He lets out a soft hiss, putting a hand to his mouth as he slumps back against the wooden chair. Leaning onto the left armrest.  

Your ears pick up on Leon's strained noise, and you pull your knees up to your chest, breathing heavily between them. It's almost over, you think to yourself. Just a couple more minutes, and we can do something else. Forget about this, and maybe read the Bible to cleanse our minds.  

The guy on the screen pulls her up so her back is flushed against his chest, his arm wrapped around her throat to keep her there. Her body is shaking uncontrollably, and he groans deeply, thrusting a couple more times before he comes to a halt.  

"Fuck, baby girl, fuck. Take it. Mmhh, I want to get you pregnant so bad. Gonna suck on those fat tits until they're squirting milk into my mouth. I'm gonna love seeing you so swollen and full of my seed. God damn."  

That's it. He pulls out of her, and you can vaguely see a white liquid pooling out of her and onto the bed. Her body is so red and bruised. It makes you take a deep breath.  

By clicking out of it, you eject the disk and put it on the desk. Quickly shutting down his PC.  

Both of you sit there in silence for a little while. Afraid to look at one another.  

The air is so thick and hot, as if someone turned a heater on. It would make sense, as both of you have red faces and sweaty palms.  

Leon's the first one to clear his throat and shift in his seat. "So, um. What did we watch?"  

"For heavens sake, we just watched two people make love, Leon!" You whisper-yell at him, looking directly into his eyes.  

He tugs his bottom lip between his teeth and looks to the side, clearly embarrassed. "Right."  

You get up and flop onto his bed, face first. The coolness of his sheets is washing over you like an ice pack. 

Leon sits next to you, practically burning his gaze on your thighs. Lost in thought of the possibility of doing something like what you both saw just mere moments ago. His hips are bucking upwards, seeking relief. Looking like a damn fool for humping the air.  

"Do you think that felt good? Would God like...allow them to seek pleasure like that?" You mumble into the bed.  

"I think so, but I don't know if God would be happy if they were to continue..without repenting for their sins and asking for forgiveness."  

Yeah, you figured he would respond like that.

"I feel gross, Leon."  

"Me too."  

You turn on your side and look him up and down slowly. "Are you... aroused?" 

Leon gulps and tilts down to meet your gaze with a small nod.  

"Me too." Your voice is soft and hushed. Rubbing your thighs together for some relief.  

At this point, you don't even care. God this. God that. Those women at the church don't seem to care when they get pregnant. They just pray and repent for their sins and move on with their day like nothing happened. So, God doesn't fucking care if you have intercourse or not. So long as you ask for forgiveness.  

His baby blues drop to your lips and back up, licking his own lips. Then, he leans down and boxes you between his firm body and the plush bed.  

Your breath catches in your throat as you feel him tremble above you. Heart thumping wildly in your ears, wondering if he can hear it too.  

Unconsciously, your legs spread open to accommodate his hips. He shifts his weight nervously, his groin settling on top of yours.  

Both of you moan and buck your hips towards one another, wanting more. Becoming insatiable beasts filled only with lust and need. Logic? God? Who needs that when you have horniness on the brain?  

Leon groans and buries his face in your neck, panting hotly against your skin as he begins to dry hump you. "Please... It-It hurts. I'm sorry." He stops himself from rambling on, nosing up to your earlobe.  

"Leon, it feels really good. Don't—don't stop, please." 

His hips stutter, and he lets out a soft whimper, touching his forehead to yours. "May I... may I do what the video showed, to you?"  

"Yes," you say as you connect your lips to his, tangling your hands into his thick locks of brown hair. Lightly pulling on it, earning you a groan into your mouth and a thrust against your clothed mound. 

Tongues uniting sloppily, moans spewing out, and desire floating in the air. A perfect recipe for disaster. 

He sits up on his knees, his eyes blown out, his lips red and glossy with spit. How can he get even prettier? It's not fair. It really isn't. God really gave him the best of the best, honestly.  

Leon quickly made work of his button-up, throwing it across the room. His wife beater is the only article of clothing shielding you from seeing his chest and abdomen. What a shame. Though you do see a small silver chain, most likely it is his cross that he always wears, no matter what.  

Breathing out of his mouth like his nose is fucking clogged, he hesitantly reaches up to the hem of your dress. "May I?" He whispers, pushing it up to where your shorts stop at your waist.  

You nod, your hips lifting up to help him get rid of your dress. It soon hits the floor next to his shirt. Immediately feeling embarrassed, you cover your black bra with your hands.  

Leon just stares in awe, his hands slowly trailing up your sides and tracing every contour and bend in your body.  

"So beautiful," he mumbles. His thumb feels nice and is also ticklish where the sun doesn't see your body. He carefully removes your arms away from your bosom, kissing the inner parts of your wrists and making eye contact with you for the entirety of this undressing. 

You gasp as he kisses down to your clavicles, making sure to take his time mapping out your figure with his lips now. Dipping down to your cleavage, his hands grab ahold of your waist, thumbs rubbing against the wire of your bra.  

Leon presses his lips across your entire chest, making your skin buzz and your soul leave your body. 

Never in your life would you have imagined Leon doing this to you in his own bed.  

He fumbles with pulling your cups down, trying to get rid of the bra. "Can you, um.. take this off?"  

You lean forward and unclip it, letting it fall forward into your lap. Getting your arms out of the straps, you are now topless in front of him. Topless in front of someone for the first time ever.  

God is getting ready to punish the both of you for sinning, and you know it. Closing your eyes tightly for a few moments as you try to battle with continuing or just leaving Leon to deal with his own battle. That would be just mean. And if you were going to sin, why not together?  

Gulping down the acid that clawed its way up your pipes once more, you shake off the guilt as much as you can. Opening your eyes, you see Leon getting closer to your chest. Ready to plant his love on them.  

He slowly kisses around your areolas, nosing his way from breast to breast. You let out a nervous giggle as he makes eye contact with you as best he can.  

Finally making contact with your nipples, he dips his tongue out and swirls around it. Pulling away with a soft 'pop', you card your fingers through his hair.  

"Did that feel good?"  

"Yeah, it felt really nice." You give him a shy smile, and he returns it.  

Leon does the same to the other one before leaning back and admiring you once more. "You are honestly beautiful." 

Covering your face with your arms, you push him with your knee, mumbling an embarrassed "thank you." You still have your manners, even for being the devil's best friend.  

Some shuffling, and you peek through your arms and see he's taking off his white wife beater. You bite your lip and shift to your haunches, running your hands up his abdomen. Mesmerized by the way his muscles tense under your fingertips, dipping down to a small patch of hair trailing down beneath his jeans.  

Smiling up at him, you wish to return the favor. Putting your lips near the belt of his pants, kissing each of his hip bones softly. His body twitches towards you, and he lets out a broken moan, putting his hands on your shoulders. You decide to be experimental and graze your teeth all the way up his stomach, stopping at his chest. Leon's sounds are going straight down south; you'll be surprised if your shorts aren't completely wet by now too. 

"Can I?" You grab ahold of the button on his jeans, toying with it. Asking him for permission to undress him as well. He shakes his head, yes, and you immediately start undoing his fly. With a soft gasp, you see his bulge with a wet spot near the tip, staining his dark blue boxers. You continue to tug his pants down to his thighs so he can do the rest himself.  

Leon's pants join the rest of your clothes on the floor. You shimmy your shorts and tights off. Both of you dressed in your undergarments.  

You lay back, eyes on his cross necklace, hoping that God will accept you both as you are after this experience. Making love before marriage isn't acceptable, and you've been told your bodies are sacred temples and to not let anyone in or touch you inappropriately. Both of you would be shunned, and God knows what else would happen. 

Leon begins to kiss his way down to your ankles and back up between your thighs. Slowly breathing in the scent of you. Pressing a few on your clothed mound, making you squirm, your thighs daring to close on his head. He gently pushes them away and up as he leaves little love bites where your legs connect to your most sacred spot. 

Moaning softly, you cover your mouth. Your eyes dare to roll back into your head as you try and watch Leon explore your features before he removes the last article of clothing, keeping him away from seeing you completely bare. He moans into your panties, kitten-licking to taste your arousal. He is doing his best to try and copy the video from earlier. 

"Please, Leon.." you whine, your hips pushing against his face, aching for more.

Leon nods his head and nuzzles against you, his nose stimulating you even further. He pulls away to remove your panties to dive back in. 

Getting messy with it, he drools onto your folds, pressing open-mouth kisses all over. Paying attention to where you moan and squirm the most. 

He dips his tongue down into your pulsating hole and groans, his eyes rolling back at the taste of you. "Tastes s'good, baby," he continues to ravage your poor, sensitive pussy, iron grip, keeping your thighs open. 

You squeak and grab ahold of his hair, trying to push him away as you feel an unfamiliar warmth spread throughout your body. "Leon! Wait, wait, I-I—" 

Leon moves his mouth up to your little pearl and begins to suck and nibble on it. That's what truly sends you over the edge. 

Back bowing, legs shaking, head thrown back with your mouth open in a silent scream. You can't even feel your lower half; pins and needles are crawling down your legs and into your feet. You're sure your legs snapped shut on his head, as you feel him so much more now. 

Soon you come back into reality with Leon hovering over you, his dick freed from its prison, poking your thigh. "You okay? Did that feel good, my love?" It's so sweet how he's checking in with you after giving you the best time of your life! 

"Y-Yeah," you breathe out heavily, pulling him closer by his silver cross. Toying with it between your fingertips. "That felt amazing. Thank you." 

Giving him a soft, sensual kiss. Tasting a bitter liquid on his lips. He chases you as soon as you part, dipping his tongue between your lips and asking for more. You oblige, and his thick muscle is invading your cavern, touching each tooth and swirling around your own tongue. It's turning hot and heavy as he presses his hips into yours, putting weight on you. 

He starts humping your leg, his cock pulsating and leaking transparent sticky fluids on your skin. He is moaning and panting into your mouth as he cups your breasts. Slowly pulling away as he takes you in once more, completely infatuated with you, it seems. And it also seems the feeling is reciprocated by yours truly. 

"Can I put it in, please?" Leon grabs ahold of his dick and clumsily strokes it over your cunt. His body is stuttering forward, and his grip on your breast is tightening just slightly. 

Biting your swollen bottom lip, you nod slowly. Bracing yourself for the intrusion down there. It doesn't even look like he'll fit inside of you; you're afraid he's going to somehow rip you apart down there. But you push down the fear with a shaky sigh. 

"Just, um.. let me know if it hurts," he swipes through your folds a few times before sinking into you gradually. 

Your body tenses up, and you grab hold of his hand, squeezing it as you let out high pitched breathy whimpers. Squeezing your eyes shut as you try to get used to his size. You can't believe he's taking your virginity. 

"W-wait, stop, stop, please... It hurts." You feel tears forming in your eyes, and Leon immediately halts. 

Pressing chaste kisses to your eyes and one on your lips, his body bucks forward. With a groan, he murmurs, "God damn. I-I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, baby."

Your pussy flutters around his length, and you breathe in and out, getting used to him. Canting your hips up to get more of him on your terms, you roll your hips with a gasp and say, "Leon."

He takes that as a sign to push more of himself into you, filling you to the brim. Shifting to lay down on his forearms, next to your head, you wrap your legs around his waist. Your nails dig lightly into his back, eliciting a low growl from him as he tries to calm himself down. Too aroused with the feeling of you wrapped around his shaft so tightly that he can't even begin to think properly. 

Taking a quick breather so that he doesn't accidentally fall on top of you. Lazily humping against you, stimulating your clitoral area while being so goddamn full of him. 

"Baby, god," Leon starts to clumsily push in and out of your sopping heat. Barely even disconnecting himself from you. If anything, he doesn't ever want to pull out of you. You feel too good; it would greatly upset him to stop now. 

It feels so intimate as he continues to hold your hand, sloppily kissing you as his dick slowly penetrates you deeper and deeper. Swallowing each other's noises, afraid of getting caught by his parents, is always lingering in the back of your mind. 

"Mmnn, you're so tight, it's hard to move." Leon drops his forehead onto yours, staring at you intensely. His eyes are soft yet lustful, carrying love in them, you see. 

Maybe you just hope that he loves you because you've loved him all your life. Having known him since you were 4 and he was 6, you couldn't have asked for anyone else to take your virginity but him. Even though he's the pastor's son. 

"I love you," you can't help but blurt out. Biting your lip as he speeds up his movements for a few thrusts before going back to his lazy ones. 

"You mean it?" He pants heavily into your mouth, feeling you nod your head against his. "I love you too. God, I really, really do. I promise, baby." 

With those heartfelt (sort of) confessions, he begins to pick up his pace.

Growling softly when you clench around him or make squeaky noises that can't be discerned by a whimper or a moan. He loves you and all your little noises. The freckles that paint your body. The way your body curves and your stretch marks—everything about you is so gorgeous to him. He wouldn't want to do this with anyone else. He's tried giving you signs and hints that he wants to be your boyfriend, but he is always too scared to say it outright. But now he's glad about how things turned out. Including giving you his virginity.

You claw at his chest, grabbing ahold of his necklace as he fucks you harder. Looking down at his member, you see a white ring around his base. Throwing your head back into his pillows, you feel another orgasm creeping up your body. 

"I'm gonna—it's gonna happen again, Leon, mmphh," you whine out as your legs try to close up, only to be blocked by his body. 

Leon lets out a pained whimper, and then all of a sudden he grips onto your hair and starts to gently bite under your jawline next to your earlobe. It's syrupy and slow this time; your mind goes fuzzy and blank. No thoughts, just Leon. And his manhood bumps into your cervix. 

"Please, let me... inside—can I?" His words are all jumbled up, and you can't help but say yes. 

He speeds up even more, which seems impossible, but it really isn't. It has your chest bouncing with each thrust, and soft cries are leaving your lips. He keeps on holding onto your hair and hand, bringing your face up to meet him halfway to make out with you. Drooling into your mouth and his eyes rolling into the back of his head. With each thrust, his necklace bumps into your neck. 

Hips stuttering into yours, he almost collapses onto your figure. Threatening to bury you into his mattress as he lazily thrusts a couple more times.

A hot liquid squirts into your womb, and Leon lets out a strained moan, dropping his head into your neck. Slowly letting go of your hair and letting your scalp relax after such harsh treatment. Your cunt clenches around him tightly. 

His hips continue to jerk into yours, almost making sure his cum stays inside of you. It's like his body already knows what to do after watching one video of people making love. 

Leon presses soft kisses up to your temple before getting off of you. Shifting back to his haunches, he hesitantly pulls out of your hole. Watching your cunt flutter around nothing, his seed slowly drips out of your hole. His dick jumps, hitting his toned stomach, almost ready to jump back into action for round two. 

"Baby, just so beautiful. I love you." 

You can't help but giggle at that, making more of the sticky white liquid squirt out of your hole and onto his sheets. He quickly notices that and grabs a few tissues to wipe it off, leaving you and himself clean. 

"I love you too, pretty boy," you sigh deeply, truly enamored with the way Leon just is. He's so sweet without even trying. 

You go to sit up and grab your undergarments, but your legs are too shaky to even stand up, and you almost fall over. Leon maneuvers you back onto his bed and fetches it all for you. Getting himself dressed as well. 

Hell, maybe it wasn't so bad to become a sinner. It was definitely a heavenly sin, that's for sure. 

You two stare at each other, lips swollen red, eyes swallowed by the black and flushed pink faces. Your hands interlocked as you slowly began to kiss. But this time, it's much sweeter and softer. No rush to feel skin on skin; just relaxing in the now. 

"What're we going to do?" Mumbling into the kiss, you pull away. 

"What do you mean?" 

"You.. you did it inside of me. What if I get pregnant? I can't be a mother right now, Leon," you frown, looking down at your stomach. 

"I'll figure it out, okay? And—And if you do end up carrying my child, I'll be there. I'm not just going to leave you."

And with that, your worries washed away, nodding alongside his words as if they were God's words. In a way, he is God to you. Constantly saving you, bettering you, loving you unconditionally, and listening to you. You'd get on your knees any day for Leon. He'd just have to say the word, and you'd do it. 

"Was I too rough? Are you hurt anywhere?" He presses a few chaste kisses on your forehead and temple. 

"No, but I am hurting... down there. It feels a little sore. But everything else is fine." You give him a thumbs-up with a goofy grin. He returns the silly smile, nuzzling your jawline. 

"I can see if there's any ibuprofen; I'll be right back, okay?" 

Shortly, he returns with two pills and sets them in your palm, bringing your water over to you. You take them with a gulp of water. 

"I think I've got to use the restroom as well. I'll be back." You let out a breath and walked into the bathroom across the hall. Doing your business, flushing, and then washing your hands before returning back to him. 

Joining him on his bed, under the covers, to snuggle up close to him. 

"You're so warm. I love it." 

"I'm glad you do, sweetheart." 

You both end up talking for a few more hours about work, your friends, hobbies, and, lastly, how long you've liked one another. 

"Wait, wait, wait," you giggle and lay on your elbows, resting your head in your palm. "You've liked me ever since elementary school? Why haven't you told me?" 

"I tried. I tried giving you hints; I even brought you a flower that one time, remember? And, like, I always let you borrow my shirts and sweaters. I thought that was enough, and you saw that, and, uh, just didn't like me back." Leon rolls his eyes and pulls you into his arms. Attacking you with kisses on your ear and behind it.

You squeal and squirm in his grasp, letting out a breathy, "Okay, okay! I see it now!" 

"What about you?" 

"Since middle school. Remember the time on Valentine's Day when I gave you like all my candies? And then, when we did bingo at church, I gave you my prize and said I didn't want it. Yeah, well... I wanted it, but I gave it to you instead." 

"So cute. I love you, baby bug," he mumbles into your neck. 

"I love you too, handsome," you answer into his shoulder. 

It is safe to say that you both fell asleep holding onto each other. With smiles on your faces. You both are dreaming of the day that you both get married and have the whole white picket fence, dog, children, and everything in between.

You'd risk your relationship with God again if it meant that you'd be with Leon forever.

He would absolutely risk being called a devil's spawn if it meant that he'd get to be your lover forever. 

Maybe God would forgive you if you decided to sin again and again. As long as you are happy, it doesn't matter what happens. If and only if, you have Leon, the pastor's son, in your arms, everything will be alright.

[wandascrush]

Cornered

Warnings: kissing, cheating, flirting

After your first kiss with Wanda, sitting on her lap as she took your breath away, you quickly pushed her off and ran out the door. You weren’t a shy girl by any means, and you knew you two were playing a dangerous game, but really? A pastors wife? Wanda Maximoff, the doting wife and volunteer everyone looks up to? You were barely a sophomore in college, kissing a woman who’s married and in her 30’s like it’s no big deal. You had no business being involved in something this scandalous.

When her lips collided with yours, it suddenly turned into a big deal…everything was a big deal. You couldn’t be letting your fun feelings go too far, and besides, you were only here for the summer. Your feelings for Wanda weren’t real, it’s just a fling. Wanda, on the other hand, felt completely different. She knew that you wouldn’t stay in town forever, but that didn’t stop her from wanting you one bit.

She got worried when you didn’t show up for your special solo that Sunday, the one she found you a pretty dress for and did your blush and- even the thought of the kiss made her cheeks grow with heat. After service she waited at a lonely table while her husband chatted it up with all the families and other guests. Wanda got used to having your company, talking and laughing and giving you light touches. Her high status as the Pastors wife surprisingly didn’t leave her with many real friends.

When she got home, the first number she called was yours, sitting on the couch with a cold glass of iced tea and waiting for you to pick up. You saw her call, took a breath, and declined it. Funny enough though, you were still wearing the dress and her makeup…you just couldn’t take it off. The doting wife called you 10 times in the span of an hour, leaving countless voicemails.

“Hi sweetheart, it’s Ms. Maximoff…it’s Wanda. Please call me.”

“Why’d you miss your solo, we worked so hard on it?”

”We should talk about earlier…it was completely unprofessional and I’m sorry, honey.” “Call me back, or meet me at my house in an hour. I’d prefer your discretion on this.”

You decided to be a mature adult and drove over to her house, anxiously knocking on the door. The beautiful woman you’d kissed just hours earlier stood there, hair shiny and soft with perfect lips and- that’s not even what you were here for. Focus. “Please come in, make yourself comfortable,” she said as she took your coat and your purse.

You two sat across from one another on two separate couches, letting uncomfortable silence stir between you two. Then, you spoke, “I just want to say I’m sorry for earlier, it should’ve never happened and I-”

“Don’t apologize, Y/N. I wanted it…I still do.” “What-what’re you saying? Wanda your husband is a pastor and you work at the church and- I don’t even know what’s going on.” “For years I’ve been able to keep my desires hidden until you, Y/N. I don’t know why but I have to have you, and I know you want me too.”

“You’re married-”

“You think my husband doesn’t have his own flings?”

She sat on your side of the couch now, a finger gently running up your knee to your thigh, sending a shiver down your spine. You wanted her so badly. You needed her touch.

“No one would have to know.” And you said yes.

That’s how you ended up with your dress ruffled, makeup a mess, hickeys on your tits, and a phone number in your pocket that said, “Call me night or day- W.”